I just saw this post/thread- I have the whole set for my classroom. The kids (even the high schoolers) love them!

ahhhh! my friend was presenting her biology thesis and next to her poster she had e. coli and strep. so my friends who went to see her thought this was great, so the girl presenting got each of the seniors on the crew team a giant microbe!

i got syphilis, and my roomate got gonorrhea. it was pretty funny.

bump! It's a new school year, any 1st years out there?! I'm happily enjoying the joy of rotations that is 3rd year. Anyone else?

I got "The Clap" for my husband for our 4th anniversary! Actually, I walked around all day at work, handing it to people then telling them that I just gave them gonnorhea! Invariably, everyone dropped it like a hot potato!

blackngoldengrl, enjoy 3rd year....it was easily my favorite year of med school! Sure, 4th year is cake, but 3rd year is exciting!! Still want OB/GYN? I came soooo close to doing OB before I made the insane decision to do Surgery. After two grueling years of 120hr work weeks and q3 call, I made the best decision of my life and switched to Radiology. Awesome field! You might consider it...great options for practice!!:D

Ahh Surgery?!! You were a trooper to stick it out as long as you did, and before the 80 hour reform?! Hats off!
I'm still thinking ob/gyn, but I have yet to do the roation. So far I've liked family and psych. Next rotation is medicine...q4 call.:(

My husband is Med/Peds , Board certified in both but doing a fellowship at Hopkins in Peds Endocrine. He thought he'd do surgery or neurosurgery, then he did medicine and knew it was for him. Despite all the rounding, it's a lot more intellectual than most surgical fields. He ended up specializing in peds just because the subspecialties of peds tend to be more challenging than the adult subspecialties in his opinion. In my opinion, I HATE peds! We didn't have a family medicine rotation...instead we had a student clinic called Comprehensive Care Clinic that was precepted by the FM attendings. We learned a lot, but it was universally hate and called Incompetent Care Clinic! I liked Psych too, but I only did emergency psych...gotta love those actively psychotic patients!

MSIII here... just finished Surgery and am now on Psych. 3rd year is truly a breath of fresh air after the Step 1...

Have you decided on a specialty yet?

Agree, being an M3 is soooo much better than any of part of the first two years. Actually doing things has made me hate the first two years that much more so.

I started on Surgery - really loved the two weeks I spent on Pedi Ortho. Have spent the last 4 weeks on Peds. Have 4 weeks left, 2 at the University Outpatient clinic, then 2 weeks on inpatient.

I'm pretty sure I want to do Peds, then either a cardio or GI fellowship (maybe neonatology), but my time on Pedi ortho had me considering an ortho residency, though my Step 1 score isn't fantastic. Not sure I could handle an Ortho residency anyways.


AOII Angel - I've been thinking about the Med/Peds route as well, then doing the peds fellowship. How did your husband like it? Does he think it was worth it? I've had a lot of people tell me that it's a dying residency path (even though it's pretty new), as well as describing the residents as red-head step children, and a bunch of other negative things. Did it help him in his search for a fellowship position? Does he plan on focusing just on peds patients, or is he expecting to spend time on following kids as they become adults too? Any sort of info you could give me would be great!

Residency Matching
 

I didn't want to start a new thread, so sorry if this seems like a hijack...

Recently I've met a huge group of fourth year med students at Medical College of Georgia (they just started frequenting my place of employment). Last week, they all found out where they matched for next year for their internship and residency. The process reminded me a LOT of recruitment and bids matching, so of course I was fascinated by the whole thing! :) Does anyone know more about how the process works, if it is in fact similar to bid matching? Just curious!

Yes...it is very similar to bid matching. The difference is that you apply for the residency programs that you would consider going to. I applied to 11 general surgery programs when I went through the match, but some people apply to over 90 programs for the more competitive programs (ie Dermatology, Orthopaedics, ENT.) The programs invite you to interview based on whether or not your meet their criteria. At the end, you make a list of the programs in order of how you liked them and the programs do the same with the applicants. The two are secretly matched in the same way.

I didn't know dermatology is that competitive! How come? Just asking? Because it can lead to Plastic Surgery?

Did you get your general surgery program of your choice? Congrats if you did! :)

Derm is competitive because of:

1) Great lifestyle. There aren't a whole lot of dermatological emergencies that require you to be on call.

2) Lots of money. Most dermatologists are doing a lot of different procedures - like botox - which aren't covered by insurance companies so the market dictates the cost not the insurance companies.

3) There are very few residency spots, so supply is very low. This is what amps up the competitiveness, while the first two things I mention are what have driven up demand.



I personally don't understand it entirely. While I certainly want a good lifestyle and good money, I also want to be interested in the medicine I'm doing...one look at a clinical derm book was enough to sour me on the whole field - just disgusting picture after disgusting picture. I guess some people are able to put aside that aspect in order to focus on the money.

The most competitive programs are those that have high pay, low work hours and the fewest spots in the country. Dermatology is a very small residency with less than 1000 spots open per year in the country. You have to be top of your class to do dermatology...not because it is that difficult! People like that there are no dermatology emergencies to get you out of bed at night. Plastic Surgery is also a small residency program (smaller than dermatology) but you can also become a plastic surgeon after completing general surgery or ENT or Oral Surgery (DDS-MDs.) Dermatologists cannot do plastic surgery, but can perform injections and biopsies.

I did get my top general surgery choice, though, I dropped out of surgery for a much more competitive field, Radiology, after two years of back breaking work. General surgery, even after the 80 hr work week limit started, requires residents to work extremely long hours (up to 120hrs some weeks of my residency) and does not guarantee as high a salary as fields that demand much less time.

I agree with you on that, but I think the students that become interested in derm are interested because of the competitive nature of the field and then convince themselves that derm is why they went into medicine in the first place. In practice, they see mostly acne and skin cancer with the occasional atopic dermatitis and psoriasis to mix things up. The rest of the time they just biopsy it anyway. The sad thing is that the most difficult field, Internal Medicine, often does not get the best and brightest.

I heard that Radiology is a competitive field. Don't residents have to go through extra training couses, like rotating through other subspecialties in order to comply with the American Board of Radiology?