Orthopedics

Orthopedics is back on my short list. For the first two years of medical school I was all about the orthopedics surgery option for residency. However, I really came to enjoy family medicine. I continued to like it the more I did and it became the top thing I was interested in. Part of this reason was because of the horror stories I heard about surgery from my classmates.
This attitude was only encouraged when I started my Surgery rotation. The surgical residents and some of the full-fledged physicians are demeaning to the medical students, they can be verbally abusive, and seem like very bitter people. The hours are also really long (you get up at 4:20 or earlier, get to the hospital by 5AM, and don’t leave until 7PM, you also have to be on call at the hospital every 3rd night and you don’t get much sleep) and the residency is 5 years long of this. Unfortunately, most of the general surgeons I have talked to LOVED their surgery rotation. I really hate my general surgery rotation and I thought this was a death knell for any plans for surgery that were still floating around in my head.
Thankfully my father was persistent in encouraging me to not dismiss surgery too quickly. He sat next to his cousin who is an orthopedic surgeon on a recent trip and when he got back he told me give him a call and chat with him. One of the most encouraging conversations I’ve had recently. He HATED his general surgery rotation. When he went into orthopedic residency he had to do a year of general surgery before he got going on his orthopedics training and he said that that year was probably the worst year of his life.
Although that may sound less than stellar, it’s actually the best news I’ve heard in a long time. I have hated my surgical rotation and the thought of doing it for 5 years is intolerable, but if I only have to put up with it for 1 year before getting into a cool residency with cool surgeries and nicer people…well it’s back on the list. The hours are still going to be very very long as an orthopod resident, but I think it’s something that I can like as much as my family medicine dreams.