The most difficult thing during studying medicine is not preparing for exams. The real challenge is to decide for a specialty.
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But let’s look at the reality, that always helps:
The medical knowledge that has to be mastered grows fast and doubles constantly. As a consequence you don’t stop specializing after you are a general orthopedic surgeon but rather subspecialize in extremities or even joints. Heart surgeons subspecialize in heart valves. (Mrs Tricupid and Mr Shoulder…)
Even a field like nephrology (that’s one organ!) provides different areas. Transplant, Dialysis, Intensive Care, Interventional Nephrology, Autoimmune. I only know one good allrounder in nephrology, and he is definitely out of my league. So sooner or later in most cases you will have to (sub-)specialise, if you want to compete.
All important leadership books teach you that you have to focus. Apple focuses on 3-4 products. Southwest Airlines only uses one type of aircraft. Starbucks focuses on coffee, nothing more. “If you do one thing and do it well, you can build a reputation that almost guarantess success in the long term.” (Al Ries, “Focus“)
An early decision on what you want to learn gives you certain advantages:
- You have more time to make the necessary connections to your future boss.
- You learn differently as a student compared to as a resident. You’re allowed to make mistakes and ask stupid questions. As a resident you have to do the basic work, while the student gets to watch interesting stuff.
- While studying for exams and tests, you can decide whether you just want to pass the test or really dig into the information to profit for your future career.
- You can choose to do the practicals and clerkships in fields that will help you in your future careers:
- You want to be a dermatologist and you have to do a surgery rotation: Try to get into plastic surgery.