Comments on: MSH Specialty Review: General Surgery

By: Paddy

Paddy — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 23:39:59 +0000

Make sure ya cover Radiology as well, will you please? Great article, and great blog!

By: Hoover

Hoover — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:05:43 +0000

Great comment John, and it’s refreshing to hear the truth from a general surgeon in practice.

By: John Smith

John Smith — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:53:59 +0000

I am a military general surgeon, and my advice would simply be to go into the area that you enjoy during your 3rd and 4th year rotations. You’ll find an area that you fit into better than others, depending on who you are and what you want. It is true that surgery demands more of you, and you don’t get it back financially. It does take a large toll on your family life as well.

As you make your decision, try to leave your classmates and what they are doing out of it. Lots of people get into competition about what they’re going to do, which is very foolish. Do what you want to do.

By: Hoover

Hoover — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:35:21 +0000

I’ll try and get up a neuro review pretty soon. I’d actually like to cover all of the popular specialties at some point. The specialty reviews involve more research than I initially expected, mainly because I want to present the information as the facts with small bits of my opinion thrown in.

As far as surgery is concerned, the hands-on stuff will be there most definitely, but if you want any sort of lifestyle at all you should reconsider your choice.

I had a long comment typed up, but I want to wait and post it as a separate post as I believe it warrants its own discussion.

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 04:04:45 +0000

I am a first year at Stanford and though the school itself really is top notch, I fucking hate studying this material. As Panda said on his blog, it’s not intelectually demanding, it’s just really, really boring studying basic science literature all of the time.

I hope third year is better! I was thinking of doing surgery (I like the hands-on stuff, and I hate having to recall trivial facts and minutia), but the more I look at surgery residencies, the more I realize that I want my career to be the focus of my life, but not the entirety of it – and posts like yours are exactly the sort of No Bull Shit perspectives I need to hear.

I may go into surgery, I may not; whatever I do, it will be with eyes wide open.

So that’s all to say… Thanks Much!

Also, how about a neurology review?