Another Match Day has come and gone. As fourth year medical students are anxiously awaiting their intern years, here’s where the houses of Game of Thrones would likely be placed if they too were going through this process. Spoiler alert: there are some, but this list is still pretty awesome, so I’d suggest you read away. House Tully – Family Medicine “Family, duty, honor” is the saying of House Tully, one of the Great Houses of Westeros and a house with many allies. Their value of family would likely draw them toward family medicine as a specialty so that they could provide comprehensive health care for people of all ages. House Arryn – Radiology This house has suffered many calamities that have left it with few trueborn members. Between death during childbirth, childhood death, taking religious orders before they could reproduce, or miscarriages, the line has grown smaller and smaller. Finally Lysa was able to give Jon Arryn a son before Jon’s death but he is the last of the Arryns. They would match in radiology, which has been suggested to be a dying field since this house too is dying. House Frey – Anesthesiology House Frey commands the crossing of the Trident River and so their approval is required for travelers to pass. This is especially important for the movement of armies such as that Robb Stark had to arrange a marriage pact with Lord Walder Frey in order to bring his army south, a pact that he eventually broke resulting in his death. House Frey holds great control over this passing and so would match into anesthesiology so that they too can control the consciousness and sensation of patients as well as control surgeon’s ability to operate. House Tyrell – Pediatrics “Growing Strong” – their saying says it all. They have a strong army and support Renly, the youngest of the Baratheon brothers in the War of the Five Kings, so even then they support the youngest. After Renly’s death, they shift their support to the Lannisters and Joffrey, the young king. Their support of the young and their motto of “Growing Strong” destine them to go into pediatrics, a specialty focused on caring for infants, children, and adolescents. House Greyjoy – Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Isolated in the Iron Islands, the House Greyjoy keeps themselves distant from the other Great Houses of Westeros, rarely taking part in events on the mainland. Based on their isolation and bleak attempts at rebelling, they’d likely go into physical medicine and rehabilitation, a specialty that doesn’t treat with surgery but instead works with patients to enhance and restore their functional ability as well as improve quality of life for those with physical impairments or disabilities so that they can set themselves apart from their surgical counterparts. House Lannister – Orthopaedic Surgery A Lannister always pays his debts and by going into orthopaedic surgery, they will always be able to do so since it is one of the highest paid specialties. House Baratheon – Internal Medicine “The Baratheons fight each other.” While it is a Great House of Westeros, it is not united. After King Robert’s passing, his son Joffrey took the throne while his brother Stannis held control of Dragonstone Island and his youngest brother, Renly, held the seat at Storm’s End. They each have their own strategies with Stannis seeing to the counsel of his priestess Melisandre, Renly quarreling with Robert over the glorification of warfare, and Joffrey, well, being Joffrey. These differences would place them in internal medicine, a specialty with many options to further subspecialize so that each can go their own way. House Stark – Pathology With a house saying of “Winter is Coming,” they stand out from the other houses in that their saying is a warning rather than a boast. They seek to unearth answers such as Catelyn seeking to find who pushed her son Bran off a high wall leading to his paralysis and Eddard seeking to find out why Jon Arryn was murdered. Their search for answers and tendency to warn others of oncoming challenges would make them great pathologists, which is a field of diagnosis of disease. House Targaryen – Radiation Oncology The Targaryens are known for their dragons, which they use to destroy their enemies. This focus on using fire to kill would drive them to go into radiation oncology, a field that uses radiation to essentially burn away cancer. source
