Decisions decisions

One decision – THE decision - that you have to make during the third year of medical school is what type of doctor you want to be for the rest of your life. Our rotation schedule is as follows: 12 weeks of Internal Medicine, 6 weeks of Family Practice, 6 weeks of Psychiatry, 8 weeks of Surgery, 8 weeks of OB/GYN, and 8 weeks of Pediatrics. This sounds like a lot, but there are tons of different specialties and even different aspects of the same specialty to factor in when making this decision. These last 11 weeks I’ve been doing Internal Medicine and so far I haven’t really enjoyed it as much so far. I’ve been in the hospital for the first 8 weeks and I didn't get to interact with the patients much at all. It felt like a lot of micro-managing their electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, chloride), vitamins, and various other markers of how their organs are functioning. This serves a very very valuable service and I'm glad that I learned how to do it, but the thought of doing that for my whole like was absolutely depressing. I next went up to a local VA hospital and it wasn't much better but not much worse either. The last couple of weeks however I have been at a free health clinic for those without insurance and/or low-income and it's been surprisingly fun for me. You walk into a room with a patient and get to talk with them about their health. Usually there is a specific concern they are following up on, but often it is just a routine follow-up and you have a pretty wide range to explore. I personally believe that if people would exercise more, eat less, eat healthier, and sleep more (as I just ate some ice cream and and stayed up late last night. hmmmm) many of their health problems would go away. The obesity epidemic is just that...an epidemic. Most people know what they need to do and it isn't news to them to stop smoking or lose weight, or whatever. I find that it’s really fun to talk with them and come up with a plan to help them accomplish it. For someone who originally thought he was going to be a surgeon of some sort, this is just as much a shock to me as to anyone. That isn't to say that I've decided to be a family practitioner yet, but it certainly has moved up on the list.