Saturday, November 12, 2005

Let's play the "Choosing a Specialty" Game! (Part 2)

So I doubt this list has changed much since the last time I played this "game," but the reason I'm doing it again is that now I have a more complete list of medical specialties (this list includes all the possible specialties someone can place into for residency programs). What I did was rank all the specialties from 0 (I could never do) to 5 (I could definitely do), and then put them in order of ranking. The top and bottom of the list didn't change much, but the middle of the list moved around a little. More than half of the specialties are in the 0-2 categories, so for right now, there is a pretty reasonable likelihood that I won't be pursuing any of those paths. That limits my interests, but not too much-- so I think I'm in a good place.

5 pulmonology
5 otolaryngology
5 ophthalmology
5 infectious disease
5 allergy & immunology

4 thoracic surgery
4 general surgery
4 general internal med
4 emergency med
4 anesthesiology

3 preventive med
3 orthopaedic surgery
3 occupational med
3 neurosurgery
3 med oncology
3 hematology
3 cardiology

2 pediatrics
2 pathology
2 neurology
2 nephrology
2 family practice

1 rheumatology
1 radiology
1 radiation oncology
1 psychiatry
1 plastic surgery
1 physical med & rehabilitation
1 obstetrics/gynecology
1 gastroenterology
1 endocrinology
1 dermatology

0 urology
0 nuclear med
0 colon & rectal surgery
0 aerospace med

And for future, future reference: this site has a "competitiveness" scale for residency specialties. Just so I can start freaking out now, 2 out of the 5 specialties that I ranked 5 out of 5 (Ophtho and ENT) are among the 5 most competitive specialties (along with Plastics, Derm and Neurosurg, which I don't care much for). So does that mean I have to turn into a gunner?

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