Are you a medicine person or a surgery person? Which specialty?

Scroll to see replies

I think it would be quite useful for GPs in particular to know about this stuff.

Medical school is drowning in this sort of bs as it is. And the worst part is that all these new theories and innovations are unchallengable as they are so unscientific. Unrelated to psychology, but look at bare below the elbows. Prime bit of pseudoscience there.

Reply 41

Fight-or-Flight

Medicine
I'd like to be a GP because I prefer to work in an office kind of environment more than in a hospital
I know it may sound I'm a boring person, and that some argue why would you spend so many years studying medicine and ending up as a GP. But I think GPs have a lot of knowledge about a vast variety of medical fields. Yes, they don't go into so much detail about heart, psychiatry, neurology, dermatology etc but they must have sufficient information about all of them which makes it exciting, so you wont necessarily focus on one certain section of medicine. Besides, they can be involved in performing minor surgeries :smile:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 42

Fight-or-Flight

Original post by TooSexyForMyStethoscope

Psychiatry.

It's such an exciting field with so much room for research and improvement. There are lots of mental illnesses that have remained as question marks for so long. The treatments and the drugs for mental illnesses aren't very effective yet. I think, at this time, cardiology, urology, neurology etc have improved a lot. We can perform amazing surgeries on the heart or the brain, yet we can't find certain factors for autism or an effective treatment for dementia.

Also, I don't understand why some people consider psychiatry as a non-important, useless field. My parents think all psychiatrists end up being mentally ill themselves. Even my med school friend said if you do psychiatry you'll end up working in an asylum :angry:

Reply 43

fairy spangles

Medicine definately
Neurology is probably first on my list
elderly care maybe rheumatology a long shot at psychiatry. I always wanted to do haematology but after my placement i dont think its for me!!

Reply 44

Cities

Original post by fairy spangles

Nice one. If you don't mind me asking, what attracts you to neurology. I'm trying to find out whether my motivations for neurology are shared or not!

Reply 45

sweetchilli

medicine. definitely. poss emergency med, paeds but really open as not knowledgeable enough about other specialties.

Reply 46

Fission_Mailed

Like everyone else, it seems, I like the idea of ACCS at this stage.

Reply 47

The Polar Dude

Surgery for me although I was heavily interested in an A and E doctor but changed my mine but I neee detailed w/e in all fields to make the best decision

Reply 48

Magendie

Not one single mention of any of the pathology specialities. Lol

Reply 49

7589200

Id say surgery, brain surgery.

I always knew I wanted to do something with a lot of intervention as well as problem-solving and consultations - how much of the two was the question and it would be either an interventional medical speciality ie. cardiology or a 'specialised' surgical branch. After doing my neurology attachment, its clearly the most fascinating speciality ive encountered thus far in my medical career. I always found that region of anatomy the most interesting too. Plus, neurosurgeons are cool!

So its a no-brainer for me! I just hope I am good enough to get into the training :smile:

(edited 12 years ago)

Reply 50

Cities

Original post by Vazzyb

Hey, if you don't mind, could you explain what made the neurology attachment so fascinating and interesting? Neurology is actually the specialty I'm most interested in by far, but only from theory. The thing is, I'm getting the impression there are a lot of specialties which are more interesting to practice compared to neurology, but I just don't think I could give up studying the brain and related problems! So knowing that it's quite fascinating in practice is quite encouraging.

I was also wondering, have you done any neurosurgery attachments and how were they? Is the training entirely different from neurology? Also, is it true that neurosurgery is probably one of the most demanding specialties in terms of the hours worked, the irregular timings, the intensity of the job and length of training?

Cheers.

Reply 51

Cities

Original post by fairy spangles

Did you make a post a few hours back? Sorry I couldn't reply to it, I was going to say I agreed with everything you said, but I forgot what it was.

Reply 52

GodspeedGehenna

ditto @ neurosurgery, but I wouldn't want to spend my years as a registrar hoping that my consultant finally cops it so that I could take his place.

Reply 53

trektor

Medicine for me. I've only really heard of ACCS in about the last 2-3 weeks, but was was aware there would be some sort of core training along those lines. Particularly the acute medicine portion of it interests me.

Reply 54

Cities

Hmm.... getting interested in why ACCS is so popular. To those who a partial to ACCS, what attracts you to it?

Reply 55

fairy spangles

Original post by n1r4v

Did you make a post a few hours back? Sorry I couldn't reply to it, I was going to say I agreed with everything you said, but I forgot what it was.

I did however this led onto a moment of inspiration which i incorporated into an assignment. I took the post down so that it didnt look like i copied myself lol. Just incase!!

Reply 56

fairy spangles

Original post by n1r4v

Hmm.... getting interested in why ACCS is so popular. To those who a partial to ACCS, what attracts you to it?

I understand the attraction of it but the way i lool at it - its like being on call for the rest of your life!!

Reply 57

Alex D

Original post by n1r4v

Also, is it true that neurosurgery is probably one of the most demanding specialties in terms of the hours worked, the irregular timings, the intensity of the job and length of training?

Cheers.

I've heard that between 50-70% of the neurosurgeons work is emergencies. So you'll have a fair amount of driving to the hospital at 3am to perform an emergency craniotomy and remove blood clots from different layers of the meninges. Obviously being wrist deep inside someone's skull or inside someone's spinal canal is reasonably intense but like any other medical specialty you have incredible training for years, although I'd wager you'll still be crapping in your drawers. Length of training for neurosurg, around 8 years add on another 1 or 2 if you decide to pursue a fellowship which a few trainees do abroad.

Reply 58

Hippokrates

I think medicine definitely at the moment. If I had to pick now I'd say emergency medicine. I definitely want to be doing more of the diagnosis than trust me self with a scalpel, but maybe once I try it I'll fall in love with surgery?