The Student Room Group

How many specialties have you experienced?

I was just wondering, throughout your medical school training and training after that how many specialties would you have experienced? Surely you can't have seen them all and if so how would you get to base your decision of a specialty without experiencing these?
Original post by IgorYakov
I was just wondering, throughout your medical school training and training after that how many specialties would you have experienced? Surely you can't have seen them all and if so how would you get to base your decision of a specialty without experiencing these?


Good question. Here's my understanding of it, one of the doctors can correct me if it's rather more different in practice :wink:

You're right, during your time at med school you won't be able to see everything. However, for you as a budding FY1 this doesn't really make a difference. Perhaps it would make more sense if I used an example.

At my med school during our first clinical year we do a surgery block. In this block we are allocated to two surgical wards (out of general, cardiothoracic, neurosurgery, vascular surgery, and urology). So some students may end up seeing 8 weeks of cardiothoracic surgery and colorectal surgery, but no urology. Does this matter in practice? Not really.

When you qualify and are allocated to a surgical ward as an FY1, it doesn't really matter what kind of surgery the patients are in for. Your job will still be roughly the same wherever you are i.e. you'll need to sort out the bloods, chase results, do the TTOs, follow the consultant on ward rounds etc. It doesn't really make that much of a difference if you're on a cardiothoracics ward or a colorectal ward. Obviously some procedures will differ from ward to ward and specialty to specialty, but you'll have (theoretically) gained a good general grounding in med school and seen enough to be a competent surgical FY1 for your four month allocation, even if you haven't experienced every specialty. And to pass finals you'll have had to read around the specialties you haven't seen anyway, so it's not like you'll be completely unfamiliar with urology or whatever.

Now, if you're particularly keen on being a urologist during your time at med school, you could always approach one of the urologists and ask if you could do a swap with one of the other students so you can sit in on their clinics, theatre lists etc for one week...that's cool and all, but it's not like you'll be rejected for urology specialty training if you haven't done this!

Similarly, during FY1 and FY2 you can arrange taster weeks in other specialties so that way you can gain some experience in that particular field.

Hope that helps.
(edited 9 years ago)
Reply 2
I've just done my first year of medical school, and so far have experienced:

-General practice (sat in for 4 hours on 2 different GPs).
-Ophthalmology (did a three week SSU and got to go around this whole department whilst studying diagnostic equipment).

That's it so far...
Reply 3
Original post by Democracy
Good question. Here's my understanding of it, one of the doctors can correct me if it's rather more different in practice :wink:

You're right, during your time at med school you won't be able to see everything. However, for you as a budding FY1 this doesn't really make a difference. Perhaps it would make more sense if I used an example.

At my med school during our first clinical year we do a surgery block. In this block we are allocated to two surgical wards (out of general, cardiothoracic, neurosurgery, vascular surgery, and urology). So some students may end up seeing 8 weeks of cardiothoracic surgery and colorectal surgery, but no urology. Does this matter in practice? Not really.

When you qualify and are allocated to a surgical ward as an FY1, it doesn't really matter what kind of surgery the patients are in for. Your job will still be roughly the same wherever you are i.e. you'll need to sort out the bloods, chase results, do the TTOs, follow the consultant on ward rounds etc. It doesn't really make that much of a difference if you're on a cardiothoracics ward or a colorectal ward. Obviously some procedures will differ from ward to ward and specialty to specialty, but you'll have (theoretically) gained a good general grounding in med school and seen enough to be a competent surgical FY1 for your four month allocation, even if you haven't experienced every specialty. And to pass finals you'll have had to read around the specialties you haven't seen anyway, so it's not like you'll be completely unfamiliar with urology or whatever.

Now, if you're particularly keen on being a urologist during your time at med school, you could always approach one of the urologists and ask if you could do a swap with one of the other students so you can sit in on their clinics, theatre lists etc for one week...that's cool and all, but it's not like you'll be rejected for urology specialty training if you haven't done this!

Similarly, during FY1 and FY2 you can arrange taster weeks in other specialties so that way you can gain some experience in that particular field.

Hope that helps.



Ohh okay so if during your med school and F1/F2 years you haven't experienced a specialty you want to go in to and it is not possible to swap or easily gain experience would you just have to trust that you know enough about the job from reading around to decide to specialise in it? Or would the hospital help you gain experience in it to help your decision?
Original post by IgorYakov
Ohh okay so if during your med school and F1/F2 years you haven't experienced a specialty you want to go in to and it is not possible to swap or easily gain experience would you just have to trust that you know enough about the job from reading around to decide to specialise in it? Or would the hospital help you gain experience in it to help your decision?


Like I say, you can arrange taster weeks in FY1/2 i.e. you can spend a week in whichever department interests you to get a better understanding of what it's like.
Reply 5
Original post by Democracy
Like I say, you can arrange taster weeks in FY1/2 i.e. you can spend a week in whichever department interests you to get a better understanding of what it's like.


aah sorry missed that, thank you :smile:
Reply 6
Original post by IgorYakov
Ohh okay so if during your med school and F1/F2 years you haven't experienced a specialty you want to go in to and it is not possible to swap or easily gain experience would you just have to trust that you know enough about the job from reading around to decide to specialise in it? Or would the hospital help you gain experience in it to help your decision?

If you know what specialty you want to go into, it's advisable to try to get at least one rotation in it during foundation years. This isn't always possible, so most places will allow you to go on a "taster week" during F1/F2 to try out another specialty. There are points available at specialty training level in some specialties for "knowledge of/commitment to specialty" and you score more for having either done a foundation job or a taster week in the specialty.

It's all up to you to arrange though, the hospital are your employer, not your careers guidance service.

For general medical and surgical specialties, because of the core training system, you don't have to know exactly which bit you want to subspecialise in early on, you can decide this during your core training years, when you will get more experience.
Reply 7
Original post by Helenia
If you know what specialty you want to go into, it's advisable to try to get at least one rotation in it during foundation years. This isn't always possible, so most places will allow you to go on a "taster week" during F1/F2 to try out another specialty. There are points available at specialty training level in some specialties for "knowledge of/commitment to specialty" and you score more for having either done a foundation job or a taster week in the specialty.

It's all up to you to arrange though, the hospital are your employer, not your careers guidance service.

For general medical and surgical specialties, because of the core training system, you don't have to know exactly which bit you want to subspecialise in early on, you can decide this during your core training years, when you will get more experience.


Thank you :biggrin:
Original post by navarre
I've just done my first year of medical school, and so far have experienced:

-General practice (sat in for 4 hours on 2 different GPs).
-Ophthalmology (did a three week SSU and got to go around this whole department whilst studying diagnostic equipment).

That's it so far...


Which med school is this, was everybody's ssc clinical? Because otherwise that's hardly any.
Reply 9
Original post by Hippokrates
Which med school is this, was everybody's ssc clinical? Because otherwise that's hardly any.


We had 2 GP sessions in our first year. And no SSCs :p:

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