clinical rotations

Choosing a Specialty: Taking a Second Look

by
fourth year

By Brent Schnipke

As I have spoken with physicians, residents, and other medical students about the process of choosing a medical specialty, the near-universal reply has something to do with the fact that third-year rotations barely offer enough exposure to each specialty to make an informed decision. Third-year medical students move quickly between specialties, and are often granted only a few weeks to examine a given career choice and decide whether they like it or not. Because of this, major decisions about how a medical student will practice as a doctor are largely based on brief experiences that can be easily biased by particular patients, residents, attendings, hospital systems, and even external life factors. To control for these variables, most students will finish their third year and use the first part of their fourth year to take a “second look” at the specialty they are planning to apply for and to help those students who remain undecided.

Read more

Chronicles of a Med Student: Beginning Clinical Rotations

by

I walked into my first rotation with a stethoscope and granola bar in my pocket and a LOT of nerves. I had no idea what to expect. I knew I had to impress my preceptor (which I imagined was easier said than done) and ace my shelf exam because this was the specialty I wanted to pursue. Talk about a lot of pressure. A fellow medical student and I walked into the hospital on the first day and while we were very obviously lost in the hallways, a tall man walks up to us and asks, “Are you looking for Dr. ___ ?” We slowly nodded our heads, still confused. He sticks out his hand and comments “well, you’ve found him.” So began our first day.

Read more

Q&A with Dr. Shane Quinonez, Pediatric Geneticist

by

Dr. Shane Quinonez is a Clinical Assistant Professor and the Associate Program Director of the Pediatric Residency Program  at The University of Michigan. He earned his MD at The University of Michigan and then completed his pediatrics, medical genetics, and biochemical genetics training there as well.

When did you first decide to become a physician? Why?
I wish I could answer this question by showing a childhood picture of myself with a toy stethoscope around my neck. The truth is not nearly as cute. As an undergraduate student at The University of Toledo, I initially enrolled in pharmacy school, thinking I would become a pharmacist. Around my sophomore year I began reflecting on what truly gave me fulfillment in all of my previous jobs, educational experiences, and extracurricular activities. I quickly realized that I was most happy when I was interacting directly with people and was presented with opportunities to improve their lives. While these elements were clearly available in pharmacy, I felt that I would be best able to explore these interests as a physician. Though my decision was fairly calculated, I do not think I would be nearly as fulfilled and happy with my choice had I not made that decision based on the person I truly am rather than the person I wanted to be. 

Read more

The Future of MD/DO Residencies Under Single Accreditation

by

Recently, the Accrediting Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) announced that by 2020, all allopathic and osteopathic residency programs would come together under one umbrella accreditation system. This is a significant shift away from the historical separation between MD and DO programs. DocThoughts’ Host, Nirmal Gosalia, invited Dr. John Potts, Senior VP of Surgical Accreditation at the ACGME and key leader in the implementation of the Single GME System, to clarify the decision and its future impact on graduate medical education. 

Read more

Internal Medicine: The "Classic" Physician

by

By Brent Schnipke

If the average reader is asked to imagine a typical medical student, he or she might picture the following scene: a group of frazzled young people in short white coats, scurrying around the wards of a large academic medical center. They travel in hordes, flocking to the nearest attending, who calmly asks them asinine questions and then chides them for their lack of knowledge. This scene is stereotypical of an often-stereotyped field, and might be something one would see in a caricature of the hospital – on a show such as Grey’s Anatomy or Scrubs. Although this is only one example of what medical education can look like, it is helpful for giving a simplified look at the life of a third-year medical student in the throes of clinical rotations.

Read more

Residency: The Interview and Selection Process

by
Medical Spouse

Residency applications! The light at the end of the tunnel, and the process that will chart the course for the next 3+ years of your life and your spouse’s medical career. No big deal, or anything! It is an incredibly exciting time, while also being quite unsettling. Here’s what to expect and how to make it as joyful of a process as possible.

Read more

The Year of Privilege, Part 2

by

In my last article, I wrote about my perspective on the third year of medical school and how it has evolved over the course of this year. Medical education is unfortunately sparse with free time, which makes it difficult to reflect; writing these posts has been one way for me to slow down and process all the things I’ve seen, the knowledge I’ve gained, and the relationships I’ve built with patients. It was the process of doing this that led to last month’s article, highlighting some of the amazing things I’ve gotten to do this year and some general themes about the clinical side of medical school.

Read more

Popular Specialty Areas – and What Med Students Should Know About Them

by
popular specialty areas

For medical school students, perhaps one of the most difficult choices to be made in the course of their education is what area of medicine to specialize in—or whether to go into general practice. Part of this problem is the wide variety of specialties to choose from: the AMA lists around 200 medical specialties and sub-specialties.

Part of it also may be that there are a variety of factors–from expected income to the demand for certain specialties to the personalities and preferences of the individual medical student–to be taken into consideration before a decision can be made. Understanding all of these factors can take some time, but it can also make this very important decision a little easier.

Read more

What to Expect as a Med School Spouse: Years 3 and 4

by
Medical Spouse

By Amy Rakowczyk, SDN Staff Writer

With Step 1 completed, and hopefully after a little R&R, your spouse is ready to get out there and try their hard-won knowledge in the clinics! Also coming up, your spouse will be selecting a specialty and starting the process of researching residency programs. They will put their application package together, go through the interview process, rank the programs, and wait for the much anticipated Match Day, then graduation! It will be a lot in a short amount of time, so here’s your breakdown of what to expect!

Read more

Dear Me, MD | Love Me, M3

by

July 21, 2015
Dear Me, MD:
Now that you have opened this letter, you may have graduated or maybe you just matched into residency— somewhere, anywhere, hopefully?! As you read this, it should be some time during spring 2017. But, you never know, sometimes the train derails and it takes a little longer than expected, so forgive yourself if that is the case. You learned a while back that the fast lane is overrated so never mind months or years. You now have the degree that you worked so tirelessly for; the one they told you that you would never get; the degree that bears the title I know you will probably never feel is real.

Read more

The Year of Privilege: A New Perspective on Third Year

by

During my pediatrics clerkship, one of our core faculty gave a lecture during orientation. This orientation lecture was particularly good, as the professor giving it was one of our most-loved faculty members who is deeply in tune with medical students at all stages. This was back in the summer when we were just getting started with our clinical experiences, but what he said stuck with me all year. He noted with a bit of humor that third-year medical students are the lowest of the low—barely even acknowledged by many team members, ignored by some patients who refuse to talk to anyone but a “real doctor,” disregarded by residents unless it is to point out something you are doing wrong. We chuckled, already able to relate with this view, but he turned the conventional description on its head by encouraging us to think of the third year of medical school as “the year of privilege.”

Read more

All in the Family: A Profile of Family Medicine

by

Central to the skillset of every physician is the differential diagnosis; this is the process by which new patients are evaluated to establish the most likely diagnosis. Similarly, the first clinical year of medical school is like a differential for each student, except instead of a medical diagnosis, students are seeking to determine which specialty they will choose. This column explores this differential: experiences from each rotation by a current third-year student.
My first day on Family Medicine might be the best depiction of the specialty: my clinical preceptor and I moved between our three clinic rooms, barely able to keep up with the 20+ patients that had appointments. We saw a patient following up on depression with new-onset low back pain; a middle-aged woman with a classic urinary tract infection; a husband and wife geriatric wellness visit; an adult woman with diabetes; a 9-year-old with strep throat; and a few cases of sinus infection to round out the day. By the end, I was exhausted and wondered how I would ever learn everything that my preceptor knew about such a wide variety of disease processes and patients. By the end of the rotation, I was still nowhere near his level or my other professors’ – years of residency and clinical experience still separate us – but had at least developed a sense of how to manage many of the common illnesses, and feel that I have a good understand of the breadth and variety of family medicine.

Read more

The Undifferentiated Medical Student Podcast: Your Virtual Mentor for Choosing a Specialty

by

What is the Undifferentiated Medical Student podcast? Give us an intro.
TUMS is an interview-based podcast about choosing a medical specialty and planning a career in medicine. Many medical students feel lost when it comes to picking a medical specialty and planning their careers (myself included). There are many reasons for this (and some I personally faced):
-they are overwhelmed by the number of options
-they may feel they don’t understand enough medicine yet to start the discussion
-they don’t have a mentor

Read more

Put Your Patients First When Choosing Clinical Attire

by
clinical attire

Dress like an intern, not a hipster, not an executive
When I was in first-year medicine I had my ears pierced and grew my hair out. I went to attend a surgery and showed up with my piercings in and my little ringlets popping out from beneath the surgical head mask. The consultant gave me a look of consternation, the same look you’d expect from your curmudgeon next-door neighbor who’s disgruntled at kids skateboarding outside his house. He said to me, “Those piercings you have there; that hair of yours; you don’t look like a med student. I’ll tell you what. If you go back to the locker room, take out those piercings, and tuck that hair into your cap, you can observe this surgery.” I acquiesced. But I hadn’t learned the lesson yet.

Read more

Mental Health and More: A Look at Psychiatry

by

Central to the skillset of every physician is the differential diagnosis; this is the process by which new patients are evaluated to establish the most likely diagnosis. Similarly, the first clinical year of medical school is like a differential for each student, except instead of a medical diagnosis, students are seeking to determine which specialty they will choose. This column explores this differential: experiences from each rotation by a current third year student.

Read more

5 Things in Residency That I Didn’t Expect to be Hard (But Were)

by
challenges

I knew residency was going to be hard. I had anticipated the long hours, weeks in a row without a two-day weekend (which, in an attempt to see the glass as half full, I have come to call vacations), and the mountain of new knowledge I would need to master. None of this came as a surprise and I was braced for them from the day I showed up for orientation. However, I’ve found that residency comes with a whole set of challenges I did not expect. If anyone had told me about them in med school, I guess I wasn’t really listening (or, more likely, was too preoccupied trying to figure out my patient’s acid/base situation by the time we rounded to take much notice). For each of us, these unexpected challenges in residency are likely to be a little different, stemming from our own strengths, weaknesses and pet peeves. Here are some of the difficulties I wasn’t expecting:

Read more

Residency Applicants Beware! Make Sure You Understand the Match Participation Agreement

by

With Match Week approaching, this is an exciting and hectic time. As you prepare for the next phase of your medical career, it is also important to understand legal issues involved in the Match®, administered by the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP)®. As part of the online enrollment process for the Match, residents accept the NRMP’s Match Participation Agreement (MPA). Residents cannot register for the Match unless they accept the MPA. The MPA is a binding contract exceeding 30 pages. Many residents never read the MPA during the online enrollment process. Others may skim the MPA, but not read the terms carefully. Lurking within the MPA, however, are numerous restrictions on what residents may do before, during, and after Match Week. Applicants who fail to comply with those restrictions in the MPA may commit a match violation, which could lead to substantial penalties and adverse consequences for your medical career. Therefore, it is essential to be aware of your obligations under the MPA and to assure your compliance with the MPA.

Read more