'Stop Asking Me What Specialty I Choose!'

Since day 1 of medical school (or possibly before), everybody and their mothers like to ask medical students what field they want to go into. Like most medical students, for the longest time my answer was "I have absolutely no clue so stop asking me!" Only with a more gentle choice of words... Throughout medical school, we have fears of declaring what we want to pursue because (1) a large portion of medical students change their minds throughout our education; (2) we may not match into that specialty in the end, no matter how much we desire it; or (3) we are mindful of the way people look at certain fields.

There are probably aspiring plastics/orthopedics/dermatology-interested students who like to keep it secret until after they get the high Step 1 scores. There are probably many aspiring psychiatrists or family medicine doctors who have unfortunately received unfair assumptions of their academic performance just because they want to pursue "less competitive" fields (although some residency programs in these fields are still very competitive). Then there are probably people like me, who keep answering with what I don't want to do, rather than declaring what I want to pursue.

As the third year of medical school is nearing its end, I had to make a choice on what field of medicine I wanted to pursue. It was a very hard decision between internal medicine and pediatrics because I loved them both but did not want to do a medicine-pediatrics residency. In the end, I ended up choosing internal medicine. My current plan is that I want to practice general medicine in an inpatient setting. It's sad to let go of my other interests (pediatrics, PM&R) but, alas, I don't have time to pursue everything in life.

I want to share one cool story that affected my interest in internal medicine. I was entering the third year of medical school, frustrated and uninterested. The second year of medical school, with all its brute memorization, had extinguished whatever passion I had for learning that I've had all my life. It was one of the hardest times in my academic career. But my internal medicine rotation at a county hospital allowed me to enjoy learing again. I found myself excited to find articles and learn about my patients. I rediscovered the curiosity that was such an integral part of who I was; that's when internal medicine shot up to the top of my interests. It is my hope that I carry this feeling throughout residency and beyond.

For those of us who will have to decide what to pursue in the near future, stay tuned for moments like these. And for those of you who have already made your decisions, feel free to share your stories in the comments below.


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