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Selecting a Specialty: An Important Decision for

Medical Students
[By Roshan Tolani]
For students of medicine, choosing a specialty is a very important decision. Unfortunately, this decision is not easy to make.

There are many specialties to choose from.
Some offer great futures, some challenges,
and some lifestyle advantages. Moreover,
your specialty should also match your
potential, intellect, and outlook on life.
Some students are clear about their goals
before they even enter medical school, while
many remain indecisive even in their final
years of education. Most students agree that
it is not wise to defer the decision; however,
college commitments and lack of information
can get in the way.
Decisions, Decisions…
• Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation care and treat a wide variety of common
• Plastic Surgery medical problems, select primary practice.
• Podiatry You will be happy in family practice, internal
• Preventive Medicine medicine, or pediatrics.
• Psychiatry and Neurology
• Radiology If highly technical procedures are your forte,
• Surgery opt for secondary or tertiary practice. Your
• Thoracic Surgery interactions with patients will be limited, and
• Urology in most cases, general care practitioners will
refer patients to you.
Furthermore, many of these specialties
have sub-specialties. This means a medical If you are looking for a career that is
student has to choose from more than 60 hospital-based, you could be an ideal
different fields. Obviously, the situation is candidate for a supportive specialty like
complex. radiology, pathology, or anesthesiology.

The American Board of Medical Specialties Do Not Rely Purely on Clinics. 2. Intellectual challenge
recognizes the following 25 medical
specialties: Participation in clinics gives students Be objective when assessing how much you
some sense of specialties. However, the enjoy intellectual challenges. Determine your
• Allergy and Immunology overwhelming number of specialties and the level of interest in advances in the medical
• Anesthesiology fast rotation and short duration of clinics field. Gauge your interest in reading journals
• Colon and Rectal Surgery limit their utility in aiding students with their and research reports. This self-assessment
• Dermatology decisions. will allow you to evaluate your suitability for
• Emergency Medicine and chances of success in different specialties.
• Family Practice Factors to Consider
• Internal Medicine 3. Patient contact
• Medical Genetics There are certain factors that students
• Neurological Surgery should consider when selecting their As every specialty involves a different level of
• Nuclear Medicine specialties: patient contact, find your comfort level with
• Obstetrics and Gynecology respect to handling patients and their care.
• Ophthalmology 1. Primary, secondary, tertiary, or
• Orthopedic Surgery supportive 4. Lifestyle
• Otolaryngology
• Pathology This may be the most basic of all the factors. Not everyone who enters the field of
• Pediatrics If you like to be involved in continuous patient medicine is ready to sacrifice his or her

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Pharmaceutical feature

life for the profession. If you are looking On the Net Choosing a Specialty
for flexible hours and lifestyle-friendly www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/2375.
options, then specialties like anesthesiology, Selecting a Specialty html
dermatology, ophthalmology, neurology, www.kaptest.com/Kaplan/5/Medical_
radiology, and pathology could be for you. Licensing/Medical-Licensing-Home/ CareerMD
Residency/Specialties;jsessionid=SR5JWQ11 www.careermd.com
No specialty is bad. Each has its own 30J3BLA3AQJXBN3MDUCBE2HC
demands and challenges. Once you have
completed an honest self-assessment and
identified the area that fascinates you, do not
doubt your findings and decisions.

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