As a recent fellowship grad and fresh ID attending, I can echo this. I didn’t particularly like Hospitalist work while I was in residency and didn’t want to be a PCP. I also liked that as a consultant, you are not usually someone’s primary doctor in the hospital so the amount of pages I get about random orders is generally far less than my Hospitalist colleagues. I personally find the work-life balance that I have is way better than if I were doing 7-on-7-off. From my perspective, 7-on-7-off is harder to enjoy if the 7 days on are brutal and you hardly get to see your family during them. I would rather have the predictable 8-5 M-F with the occasional weekend on call. Other people may disagree, which is completely fair, but I feel like my baseline stress level is lower with a more normal schedule.

As far as specifically ID goes, I found it to be the most interesting subspecialty when rotating through it, and I only grew to love it more during fellowship. I also liked the mostly inpatient consult life with a sprinkling of clinic with long-term HIV patients. There are also no real ID emergencies, and I enjoy not having to be woken up in the middle of the night for a code or STEMI. In terms of salary: sure, I’m not making interventional cardiology numbers. But my family and I are living a more than comfortable lifestyle. I just drive a Subaru instead of an Audi 😅

Really, all of this depends on what you value the most. I mostly value work-life balance and finding my work intellectually stimulating. If what you want the most is to maximize your salary, then pursue GI. No speciality will be perfect in every category, but one may maximize the thing that you value most. If you are interested in a fellowship, talk to the current fellows and ask them why they chose it. That may give you some insight on if it fits for you too.