<p>how do you get into a field like neuro surgery or heart transplant surgery? is there anything that you should be doing during undergrad?</p>
<p>1.) You should not be deciding a specialty until your third year in medical school, after you've actually been involved in the cases. Having an idea before then is natural, of course, but it's not something to worry about until then.</p>
<p>2.) Even if you could pick a specialty, the trick at this point would be to get into a med school where you can be a good student - not always the same thing as a "good" medical school - and to brush up on standardized test taking (for boards later on).</p>
<p>bluedevilmike, just curious, any ideas what you might specialize in?</p>
<p>Again, this is something you're not supposed to get set on until your third year in medical school, but from least to most likely:</p>
<p>1.) I may not do a residency at all; I might go directly into policy/administration.
2.) Neonatal critical care
3.) Trauma surgery</p>
<p>And lots and lots of others, including but not limited to cardiology, pediatrics, interventional radiology, emergency medicine, orthopedic surgery, renal failure, oncology.</p>
<p>If you are interested in certain specialties as an undergrad, I think it's a good idea to see if you can find one to shadow for a while. Other than that, as BDM has said, such a decision isn't really critical until the third year. At that point, you'll be on the wards, you'll have a chance to experience various general areas and some specialty areas. The most common third year clerkships are Peds, Family Practice, Internal, General Surgery, Psych and OB/GYN but every med school has a variations on this set of requirements/schedule.</p>
<p>For example: at my school they're set up this way:</p>
<p>Semester A:
12 weeks Internal Med (6 weeks doing just inpatient medicine and 6 weeks spread out through various specialties of one's choosing)
6 weeks Psych
6 weeks OB/Gyn (2 weeks just on Labor & delivery)</p>
<p>Semester B:
8 weeks Peds (either outpatient or inpatient)
8 weeks General Surgery (4 weeks general, 2 - two week sessions in either ortho, ENT, Urology, Ophtha or neuro)
8 weeks Family practice - must be in a rural community as an "immersion" experience.</p>
<p>Schools will differ in how long the clerkships last, and how much specialty exposure you'll get. The rural immersion thing is an important part of my med school's mission, and is probably pretty unique in that it's a requirement and not just an option.</p>