When it comes to medical school, one of the hardest aspects of it is narrowing your options down and picking a specialty. A lot of schools are actually exposing medical students to more specialties in their third year, allowing them to be able to get a wider variety of experiences… it’s not enough exposure to solely help them pick a specialty but it does let them see what comes with other specialties and acts as a component to help them make their decision.
There are very few students who even know the considerations when picking a healthcare career as it is but as a medical student, they rarely enter medical school knowing exactly what they want their specialty to be. Students truly make their decision based off of the career advice they receive from other professionals and the experience they receive during rotations.
Although there’s no handbook, guide, or formula to follow that will help medical students know exactly which direction they want to go, there are individual factors that will assist in the decision-making process.
Narrowing It Down to…
Clinical Experience
Clinical experience plays a major role in selecting a specialty. Each different specialty has its own set of job descriptions, clinical needs of the area, and practice setting (hospital, nursing home, etc.).
As mentioned earlier, it is during your third year of medical school where you will be getting a better idea of the direction you want to go due to the different types of exposure you’ll get. Depending on the experiences you’ll have, you’ll be able to know if a specialty was interesting to you, whether or not you liked the setting, and if you liked the pace of everything.
Number of Procedures
Each specialty has a different amount of procedures that have to be performed. If you’re someone who loves to be very hands-on, then you will thrive in a specialty that requires lots of procedures. Basing your decision on the number of procedures you will have to perform is a very important aspect to consider.
What if when it comes down to actually performing a procedure, you don’t have the skills to successfully see the procedure all the way through? This aspect will help you to keep track of your strengths and weaknesses before getting out there in the real world.
The Healthy Balance Between Work and Life Outside of Work
A healthy work-life balance is a very important factor when choosing a specialty. Just think of how many people who work non-medical jobs that can’t seem to “turn off” after leaving work… can you imagine how hard it must be for doctors to be able to “turn things off” after a hard day of work?
A doctor’s work experience is totally different than that of a banker or a receptionist. Doctors literally hold the lives of people in the palms of their hand. Their goal is to make the lives of their patients better and even save lives but not everyone’s life can be saved. As a medical student, you’re going to have to understand that you won’t be able to save all of your patients.
Time.com discusses how doctors experience stress, burnout, and even depression on a daily basis. They may not look like it because they are doctors but they’re not invincible to the stressors of life. Losing a patient can take a huge toll on their physical and mental health just as it would anyone else. In fact, a survey conducted revealed that burnout and depression were the main causes of surgeons making medical errors.
Career Goals
If you are one of the few students who enter medical school knowing exactly what you want to specialize in, make sure you set yourself up with the best opportunity to reach your goal. Career goals include everything from determining your specialty to setting up a timeframe for yourself on when you want to be able to start practicing medicine.
These days, it’s become easier for doctors to find a job and start practicing in their field. Once you’ve graduated and received your necessary licenses to legally practice medicine in your specialty, the next step would be to find yourself a job! For example, if a doctor was searching for an employment opportunity in gynecology, all he/she would have to do is look on job searching tools made specifically for doctors and see what jobs are available in their specialty.
Once you give yourself that career goal, stick to it and see how far you’ll go!