Choosing Career Paths - some helpful hints

Pre-Med & Medical School Careers in Medicine
1

<p>Okay, this is more for the current med students and the soon to be current med students who are applying and may get questions on desired specialties during their interviews. Now that I'm on my clerkships, and in less than a year my colleagues and I will be picking our specialties, many people are offering us advice...and for the most part it is lame things like "find what you love and then do that". Luckily, my peds clerkship director is great, and as part of our debriefing gave us this little sequence to use to sort of gauge what is important to us, and see how that might fit with specialties we're considering. It's not perfect, but it's probably the best advice I've gotten from someone so far in how to look at my desires and how each specialty can match up. You really need to be honest with yourself when doing this. Dont' rationalize things and say lifestyle isn't important to you because you think you want to be a neurosurgeon.</p>

<p>Things to consider:</p>

<p>FAME - Do you want to be that doctor who shows up at a cocktail party and everyone knows who you are? We're not talking Dr. Gupta/CNN fame, but a variety of factors like the wow factor, or the respect within your field, or the respect other doctors/persons in your community give you. For example, neurosurgeons certainly garner that WOW when they meet someone. Other people want the notoriety from their patients and that's it. A General Pediatrician isn't likely to get the same response as the Neurosurgeon. Other people want to be well respected in their community, really be seen as a pillar - these people might prefer to end up in a small town and be THE DOCTOR. Other people might want to be in a larger city, but want other doctors to say "when Dr. X speaks, pay attention" these might be your med school faculty who are focused on general areas of medicine. </p>

<p>FORTUNE - I don't think I need to explain this, but keep in mind your financial goals. No doctor is going to have trouble paying the electric bill. But some people want a Mini Cooper, others a Lexus, and some want the Lamborghini. Some people must have a vacation home. So pay does matter in keeping you happy if you have certain financial expectations.</p>

<p>LIFESTYLE - Another self explanatory one. If you want 9:30am to 4:30 pm clinic hours with no call, there are some things you simply CANNOT be. Other people love being called into the OR at 3am.</p>

<p>BRAIN CANDY - do you like knowing a little about a lot of things, finding out your limitations and then passing patients along to someone who knows more? Or would you rather know everything about one little part of the body? Can you handle the complex problems where it's never really clear what's going on, the sort of case where you entertain the patient while nature cures the disease? Or does uncertainty drive you crazy?</p>

<p>So just some things to think about. Try going through and ranking 1-4 what is most important to you (things can tie if you really can't decide). </p>

<p>From here, you might also keep considering the standard things I've mentioned in the past - what type of patient population do you want to work with (ie kids vs adults), do you want to be more procedural in nature, or is giving a pill sound like a great idea for you. Do you want acute conditions or chronic ones? Do you want to build long term relationships with patients, do you want to never see them again, or never see them in the first place?</p>

2

<p>Well that's all good advice. Also important and much more difficult is to project who you are going to be and what your personal life will be like in 20 years. At this stage life is totally egocentric, but in the future your own visions will need to conform to the family you create. How will you want the interface btwn career and profession to function?</p>

3

<p>Very true. I thought that by simply having LIFESTYLE in the equation, that sort of question was assumed to be relevant. I didn't flesh it out as much as the clinical considerations since I figured it was readily apparent.</p>

4

<p>Hi, I'm a high school senior doing the whole college app thing and one thing that I am taking into consideration for a major (although not offered from all schools) is Pre-Med. My mom is a Registered Nurse and my dad is a doctor so I've been around that lifestyle for a long time. I was just wondering what are your opinions on the classes I should take in college that would best prepare me for med school. I know this is a long ways down the road but it could help. I also play baseball and most likely I will end up as a Princeton Tiger. However, looking at their offered majors, they don't have a specified Pre-Med major unlike Notre Dame or other schools that offer the 7-year program. So I was just wondering what is your look at this situation. If you could give me some of the classes you took or other helpful reference sources, that would be great...thanks</p>

5

<p>1) this isn't a good thread for your questions.
2) a Pre-med major is ALWAYS a horrible decision. They actually have the lowest MCAT scores. Major in something real that you enjoy - pre-med is simply an advising category. You do not have to be a science major.
3) There is no point in taking classes "to prepare [you] for med school". You have to take the pre-med requirements. Med school will teach you what you need to know. Focus on getting accepted into med school in college, and once you're in, let them teach you.
4) there are a million threads you can look at on this website. Do a search - it's located at the top of the page on a toolbar with the logout, the FAQ, etc functions.</p>

6

<p>Didn't you post the exact same question here just ten minutes later?</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=4824668#post4824668%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?p=4824668#post4824668&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

7

<p>"Pre-med major is ALWAYS a horrible decision."</p>

<p>The pre-med major is probably not a problem per se, it's just that the major is found only at "less rigorous" schools and is perhaps selected only by less qualified students.</p>

8

<p>Getting back to the specific question. If you do go to Princeton, you will have excellent premed advising. They will tell you to pick any major you like, take the premed requirements (they will tell you what they are) and don't worry about being prepared for medical school, you will be prepared. The overwhelming majority of Princeton applicants to medical school are accepted.</p>

<p>I would be surprised if Princeton has a "premed" major, but any major they do offer would be fine preparation for medical school.</p>