lack of direction

Now that boards are done and third year is about to start, my husband has been really down about not knowing what he wants to go into. Like any med student, he is quite goal oriented and not having a specific direction is really difficult for him. Does anyone have experience with this? It sure seems like a lot of his peers already know exactly what they want to go into, and I'm sure some actually do, but they haven't even received their boards scores yet and from what I understand, thats a pretty important part for some competitive residencies 8) . So how did it work for everyone here?. When did your spouses decide, was it love at first sight, did they change their minds, how often???

[migirl]

My husband had a pretty good idea going into 3rd year what he wanted to do, and the rotations just confirmed it for him. My brother - on the other hand - started med school thinking he'd do IM, gave some serious thought to surgery during his 3rd year rotations, and ended up going back to IM. A lot of people start 3rd year in the same situation as your husband, so I'd tell him not to sweat it too much. A lot of people go into 3rd year set on one thing but then change their minds, and I can think of a couple of people in my husband's med school class who didn't make up their minds until almost halfway through 4th year! Tell him to just enjoy the rotations and keep an open mind, because the specialty that he might not have thought about may be the one he ends up choosing!

[mommax3]

My husband was not sure until the very beginning of 4th year.....he wavered between family practice and OB/GYN for a LOOOONG time, and had pleasant rotations in both during 3rd year. The deciding factor was his enjoyment of surgery, which pushed him toward OB/GYN. Your DH has plenty of time to decide, and you can help him by watching him this year and noticing which rotations make his eyes light up, even when he is dead tired. I remember when my husband came home from his first overnight OB call.....he had been up and working for 36 hours, but he was totally in love with delivering babies and almost couldn't stop talking about how awesome it was. I think I knew then what he would end up doing, but it took him a while to come to the same conclusion because he had concerns (rightly so!) about the lifestyle he would be choosing if he did that specialty.....

Good luck!

Sally

[twinsmom]

Tell your hubby not to sweat it at all. One of the main purposes of 3rd year is to help them get exposed to all different specialties so that they know what day-to-day life would be like in that field.
My hubby thought he knew, and then changed so many times I lost count. Every time he would come home liking a different specialty, I would do all of the research about it, etc. I finally stopped when we had a whole file box FULL, and he was STILL coming home saying, "how about this one...?"
The one he kept coming back to was neurosurgery, so I kind of resigned myself to having him never be home throughout our whole life, and then right before 4th year (RIGHT before ERAS was due...) I got a call from him from the library, "hey, I've been thinking... I want to do Dermatology." I didn't let myself get excited because I thought he would change right back, but the more he got exposed, the more I saw his eyes light up when he talked about it.
Keep in mind, however, he had NO derm experience, no research, no special rotations, etc. So for us, the entire 4th year was CRAZY. He filled up every spare second doing derm research, rotations, etc. But it did pay off when match day came.
The one thing that I would say is when your husband decides on one (or narrows it down to a few) then have him DIVE in to get as much experience in different aspects of the field and to get his name known among the dept. chairs, etc.
Good luck and have fun on the ride! It is kind of fun to think about all of the possibilities that are open to you right now . Take care!
Jen B.

[Flynn]

For us it was easy to split up into "surgery" or "non-surgical" specialities. My DH was ALWAYS thinking surgery so then it was a matter of what he wanted to do, compensation, job security etc. Lifestyle played a small role but had we to do it all over again as I have mentioned a ton on this site, it would have been in the top 3 for priorities.

This is a HUGE decision and while for us now, family comes first -- it's hard to make it that way due to our choices.

You will have the option of more time with your family if you choose a non-surgical speciality BUT the doc needs to be happy with that choice too and not be "what iffing" all the time.

Good luck. Is he leaning anywhere? Maybe if you listed those, people can give you ideas about each?

[Flynn]

One question I would ask your DH is how he pictures his life AFTER training....

It's so easy to get caught up in WHAT type of medicine the doc prefers and while that is VERY important....that is not nearly where the questions should stop.

Ask him to number his priorities for life after training...family, friends, children? interests, hobbies, and yes CAREER.

If career is #1 -- whatever he most loves will probably fit the bill. If it isn't ...that's when things get complicated.

Just a side note to what I already said.

[DCJenn]

My husband changed his mind 800 times and then after debating about FP, IM, and a brief interlude with orthopedic surgery (yikes!) found pediatrics during 3rd year and has been happy ever since. Well, not always happy, but he's rarely regreted his decision. (except for the various periods where he decides he wants to go into pathology or radiology because he hates all people everywhere. That's usually related to lack of sleep, sex or food, in that order, though)

Jenn

Good to hear he's not behind. I've told him he has a lot of time, but somehow that means more from people who have been there . He thought about neurology, optho, PMR, EM and the latest is (he just brought it up for the first time last night) family. Out of all of them, he's thought about doing optho the most, but he's now going through a stage where he's not sure if HE really wants to do it or if it was an idea of a friend that was planted and now sounds really good.

Anyway, he started his peds rotation yesterday and I fully expect he'll come home and say peds is for him by monday. Actually I expect he'll say that for quite a few of the rotations. He loves it all. He's mentioned surgery a few times, but I tried to put a stop to that as soon as it started!! Actually I made him sit down and read some of the posts from the surgery wives. I haven't heard him mention the word since, to me at least. 8)

He has everything listed out as far as priorities go. I think its family life, number of procedures involved, contact with people, learning curve, and money, in that order. He knows he will be happy with what he picks (or he won't pick it) but like I said, he loves all of it. If anyone has any ideas about these, I'd love to hear them as Flynn said.

[SueC]

That's how my husband was Shella, he was in love with whatever rotation he happened to be on with the exception of OB--he hated that! I think by 4th year he had settled on med-peds and stuck with that, though his first IM rotation during intern year, he was in the ICU and discovered his real passion, so I guess you never know.