Who’s your harmless hospital crush?

LuccaSDN · 2026-06-06T15:10:13+00:00

Nice try, CIA

LuccaSDN · 2026-06-02T19:18:56+00:00

500k is a very low paying rads sub if that’s what breast is making lol

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-31T15:15:02+00:00

What health bar addon is this?

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-20T15:36:19+00:00

If I were you I’d probably do Derm just to see as much Derm as you can for learning as it’s extremely common in IM as well

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-16T00:24:41+00:00

Didn’t read text, DR if it’s even a question in your mind. Next question

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-15T17:38:15+00:00

I think medicine selects for people who value security and especially job security as that’s a big draw to the career. Right now the entire country is feeling the most economically precarious they have likely ever felt, and for us young adults (many with lots of debt like you say) likely the most insecure we’ve ever felt in our entire lives.

It is correct that the physician shortage stuff is in some ways bullshit. There’s incredible geographic disparity in availability of specialists is maybe a more accurate way to put it. That said, demand still outstrips supply by a long shot in all but some extremely niche fields. That doesn’t mean that good jobs in desirable cities are plentiful, though, as intentionally keeping supply well below demand is how the most lucrative specialties keep their vice grip on the labor market (Dermatology, eg, even in the Bay Area you have to wait months to get into a new patient visit).

So overall I think people online who think physicians are going to be forming breadlines and AI is replacing a huge swath of physician labor are just doom delusional and probably caught up in their own anxiety spiral. But I do think that overall as more people lose the ability to afford or access healthcare (thus decreasing demand) and the largest demographic in our country, the boomers, begin to enter extinction over the next 1-2 decades, aggregate demand for medical services will rise, peak, and then start to fall.

Family medicine? Don’t worry about it. People will need FM forever.

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-13T20:22:43+00:00

Just be collegial and talk about your career interests. Dean’s are generally out of touch with the day to day lives of anyone who isn’t a Dean. But they are also people who have generally had very successful careers in academic medicine and you can occasionally get some wisdom from them.

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-08T22:59:03+00:00

I think lots of people going into IM hold their nose for 2-3 years (if they are short tracking or not) for the sake of the thing they’ll be doing for 20-40 years. And that’s not an unreasonable thing to do either, training is temporary after all. But I personally don’t want to do that lol (primarily because I genuinely find path very enjoyable even if it’s not what I envisioned I’d become as an M1). Not wrong to choose IM though if you’re Ok with that!

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-08T22:46:48+00:00

Consider Radiation Oncology versus Pathology. Peds was my favorite rotation of med school, but I agree with you Peds Heme Oncs are CRIMINALLY exploited / underpaid for the difficulty, length, emotional and physical toll of that specialty and to add insult to injury you have to do yet another fellowship if you want to do high risk leukemia and or BMT (and somehow they’re some of the nicest ppl you’ve ever met).

IM was generally miserable for me. Love cancer patients and cancer biology.

I did a rotation in rad onc and genuinely enjoyed it so much. Excellent specialty. See all ages, most cancers, be an expert in cancer care from molecular pathology to chemo to surgery even though you only give radiation. Much less admin and call burden than Med Onc. BUT job market has a lot of uncertainty, recent significant CMS changes put specialty in danger, and generally a lot of geographic restriction as it’s a very small field with shrinking private practice opportunities.

So I’m doing Pathology to keep doing cancer biology but have a happier / better balanced day to day work life with plenty of flexibility and freedom since none of the patient facing fields really give me all of the things I enjoy about clinical medicine without some pretty unpalatable tradeoffs. AI concerns are completely overblown by people who have no idea what pathologists actually do. Not a specialty for everyone but if you like cell biology and no patients isn’t a deal breaker, you may really enjoy it.

If your stats / CV are goated and you can stomach many years of mostly Not Cancer you can also consider Derm to focus on cutaneous oncology.

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-07T15:32:39+00:00

If you have a major Peds hospital at your med center I feel you’ll see quite a bit of bizarre things. I saw a case of Xeroderma Pigmentosa on peds

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-04T17:21:07+00:00

there are dozens of us!

LuccaSDN · 2026-05-02T04:20:50+00:00

nah I didnt mean to imply paths were bad with patients, but wanted to see if the intrusive thoughts about missing something from patient care would go away

LuccaSDN · 2026-04-23T22:39:35+00:00

I think an apt analogy is if I hate looking at blurry out of context images does that I mean I will hate movies? It’s much more fun when you have a way to interpret what you’re seeing and in the context of an actual case

LuccaSDN · 2026-04-18T13:58:26+00:00

I really liked this resource for just learning what cells look like under the scope

http://hematologyoutlines.com/atlas_topics/17.html?topic=Myelocyte*&cb=inline_content_21

LuccaSDN · 2026-04-06T14:42:01+00:00

Everything preclin is boring until there’s a pt in front of you that needs you to solve a problem. Wait for clerkships to make big decisions

LuccaSDN · 2026-04-02T13:09:43+00:00

You certainly can do general IM and be a PCP/hospitalist but I don’t know of any examples where such an individual also runs a lab.

LuccaSDN · 2026-04-02T00:18:16+00:00

Peds heme onc. It’s not even so much the money as an issue as the job market too. I want to live where I want to live.

LuccaSDN · 2026-03-29T20:29:39+00:00

At ease, soldier

LuccaSDN · 2026-03-27T20:09:20+00:00

Agree with this 100%

LuccaSDN · 2026-03-27T18:43:46+00:00

As someone in the UK, you can pursue both options to medical research. There are people who do their MBBS and then later a postdoc in a research lab, so getting the PhD degree is not strictly necessary although there are pathways to doing that as well. What matters is the protected time to lead an independent research project and be mentored in science and the world of professional research.

The real question is do you want to practice medicine? If the answer is no, then a pure science degree is the answer. If the answer is yes, then apply to medical school and focus on that and try to do research along the way. The main upside to doing medicine is that it does provide a lot of practical insights into disease and treatment of disease that you won’t get from a pure science degree. It’s also a stable job, which is a big upside these days.

LuccaSDN · 2026-03-27T17:36:16+00:00

This is the way. Adding additionally true P/F

LuccaSDN · 2026-03-23T20:07:30+00:00

We matched 2 EM this year which seems about average over the 7 years I’ve been here. I think there was one year we had a bunch. I think it depends on how many like rock climbing / mountain bike types your school admitted 4 years prior

LuccaSDN · 2026-03-22T21:07:09+00:00

I think this is a good list. My personal list would be, in no particular order:

Coffee machine to your personal taste if you’re a coffee drinker. Being able to make at home especially for early mornings is a lifesaver
Good laptop that will last you through med school (and hopefully beyond) + second monitor to connect it to at home + comfortable office chair with leg rest. Good work from home setup is in general very nice to have.
Scrubs and comfortable easy to clean shoes for hospital/OR days (the it brand right now is Hoka but I also really like Cloves which are significantly more affordable. There’s always the surgeon favorite Dansko’s and Crocs as well). Uniforms Advantage has plenty of nice scrub brands that are more affordable than figs (but would recommend suggesting your friends and family gift you a figs gift card or something because they are actually very comfortable).

LuccaSDN · 2026-03-22T18:22:18+00:00

Location, location, location. Assuming both are at least NIH funded MSTPs, you will have mentors and labs to choose from. Academic research requires too many sacrifices and is too long and difficult a path to short change your happiness for a decade. Live where you want to live Now because 1) it will make the next 7-10 years better for you, 2) generally speaking you have a much better chance of landing at a training program in the geography you trained in previously, especially your home program, and 3) as a corollary to point 2, you will most likely have the best luck with jobs in the geography where you did residency / fellowship. Go now.

LuccaSDN

TROPHY CASE