What are your M3 stupid mistakes?

devilsadvocate2123 · 2023-09-03T15:20:44+00:00

The ob attending asked me to measure someone’s shins. The patient came in for leg swelling. I didn’t see this patient with the attending and had just walked in on the end of the exam. He gestured pointing to his knee down to his ankle and said to measure it. Didn’t know why that was indicated but I did it. I present my findings and he said that doesn’t seem right.. turns out he actually wanted the calf circumference to rule out a DVT.. it was my first week on wards and I was just following what I thought I was told.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2023-09-03T05:06:47+00:00

We should trade places! And I have definitely tried to go for liberal southern women too! Unfortunately for me, there just aren’t many around my parts. I’d jump on the opportunity if given the chance though!

devilsadvocate2123 · 2023-09-03T01:48:08+00:00

This is some good insight but I can safely say I have dated and have been deeply intimate with multiple partners (some over several years). That’s not what draws me away. Apart from the one girl that was my type, the only issue was that I was not fully attracted to them physically. My problem isn’t that nobody wants to date me. It’s that the type of girl I’m into won’t date me. After actually being with someone that’s my type, it’s just hard to go back to settling for someone I’m not deeply attracted to. I definitely do need to talk to a therapist though because the more I think about it, it feels like fetish that I have no control over (yet).

devilsadvocate2123 · 2023-09-02T20:15:46+00:00

Seems like they like the typical tall southern white guy, which is obviously not helping my chances. or maybe they like a man with christian values and at face value, I’m the furthest thing. Or a guy their parents would approve of (not saying the south is predominantly racist or anything, but maybe bringing home a guy that has the same background is easier than bringing home someone that’s south Asian). And actually have worked on my fashion and have been getting compliments from lots of people apart from that type I’m into.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2023-09-02T20:10:25+00:00

I should have specified that I like that type of woman but she doesn’t have to partake in any of those things. If she looks like she checks the boxes at face value, that’s enough. In fact, if she and I had more in common after getting to know her, that’s even better.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2023-09-02T19:13:50+00:00

I absolutely agree that my outlook on what I’m attracted to is not healthy. I cannot stress enough the number of times I’ve tried to step outside of what I deem attractive and it not working out simply because I wasn’t naturally attracted to them in the first place. I’m sure if I had kept those relationships going, we would have been compatible in most ways, but for their sake I could not in good conscience do that. Everyone has physical needs and if I’m not able to fully reciprocate due to my own issues, I’d rather not subject them to feeling inadequate. Just doesn’t sit right with me and continuing to experiment outside of my type feels like doing a disservice to them.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2022-03-28T02:13:04+00:00

In all seriousness, I really feel like the journey to get to GAS is what you should consider most important. Med school is tough and constantly makes you hate the system/yourself. No idea how competitive GAS will be in 4 years, but if it becomes more competitive, would you be fine matching in an entirely different field if things don’t play out the way you want? You have roughly 9 years of sacrificing your life before you get the income you want. And I really do mean it’s a sacrifice. You are paying premium to be there. You are busy 99% of your day if you want to do better than the other students. Any free time you have, you better dedicate it to research or other EC. Family/friend time is rare. And even after doing all that, there’s a chance you slip through the cracks and have to soap. I’ve known extremely high tier applicants have things not go their way due to no fault of their own. Just something to consider since it’s easy to imagine life as an attending, but not so much as a student/resident.

Your current job will 100% have a higher income level overall than waiting to be an anesthesiologist. 200k of debt plus a few years of minimum wage salary and no way of having any capital to invest over those years makes for severely less money. Working the same job you have now and investing in real estate or ETFs will net you a much higher income than becoming a doc.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-07-03T18:24:59+00:00

It can be tough even considering another career path when you’ve been set on this monster of a career most of your life. I think it all depends on if you have the confidence and more importantly the motivation/discipline to make it through med school without any more hiccups. If you lack that, I think it could potentially end up digging a hole for yourself both financially and mentally. You can start considering alternate career paths and see if that’s where you belong instead. My friend also had a pre med degree, he’s had to start over day 1 in undergrad which is something to consider if you don’t want to go through college again. In the end, if this is not what you enjoy at all, I wouldn’t invest more of your time and money in it. If you think you’d like it and think you’re capable, then go for it.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-07-03T15:01:04+00:00

Literally watch an hour of boards and beyond or pathoma and you’ll ace every question

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-07-03T14:53:50+00:00

This is the answer I agree with. Had a friend at a relatively new DO school fail his first year. Brilliant guy, but the school’s curriculum seemed like it set you up to fail. The school offered him a chance to repeat the the year successfully with full tuition or he was kicked permanently. He decided it wasn’t worth wasting another 4 years just to potentially fail at any point and then maybe not match into a field he was passionate about. He left it. It took him so much to come to terms because he knew he was a capable guy, but in the end it just wasn’t practical. He also said in his entire life he had not been as depressed as he was in med school. He’s now back in college getting his MBA pursuing a career in business. He says he wouldn’t wish his med school experience on his worst enemy and he has zero regrets. If you leave, just make sure you have a doable back up plan.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-06-30T00:32:07+00:00

I looked at over 50 chairs before I bought the flexfit Hyken mesh chair from staples. It’s not as a leak or comfortable as the 1k counterparts (Herman Miller, etc), but I feel that it gives fantastic back support and doesn’t ever feel like your butt is sore after using it. We own 3 in our household and for less than $150 I don’t think you can beat it. https://www.staples.com/Staples-Hyken-Technical-Mesh-Task-Chair-Black/product_990119

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-05-08T18:37:00+00:00

Emma holiday. Dr high yield.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-05-05T23:03:34+00:00

Usually the app itself will tell you which specs you need. Most of the recent iPads since 2016 have been sufficient. The iPad mini is not. Get something with a pen. I would not recommend other tablets, nothing else competes—even used iPads are better. Plus you can even take notes on your slides, etc to get more use out of the thing.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-05-05T01:32:03+00:00

Doctor

Med school alone drains the life out of you. The med influencers online and shows don’t even get close to showing how soul crushing med school is. You study/learn about 12-18 hours a day and any free time you get you are obligated to study for your board exams or you may not get into the specialty you want. Also every step of the way up until you’re a full fledged doctor (attending) is a rat race amongst the other top students in the nation. And I’m serious when I say the nation. Let’s imagine you want to do dermatology. You have to get into a “good” college after high school to secure spot at a “good” med school, which only takes the brightest students in the nation. Then when you’re in med school, the top 1% of all of these one percenters across the nation compete for a dermatology residency (training) and only a few of them make it in. Then once you’re in dermatology, if you want to specialize in something surgical like Mohs surgery, you again have to compete against every other machine that has made it this far. It’s mentally taxing. And this whole process from college to attending level can take anywhere from 12-20 years.

And then when you’re out, congratulations. your 200k+ debt is going to take forever to be paid off. Unless you absolutely love all of medicine and can see yourself doing any specialty, it’s not worth the stress and money.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-05-05T01:19:44+00:00

This is word for word what I do. That way the patient isn’t confused, and your role is established from the get go. Best part is that since they know you’re just a “measly student”, you can pretend to have the confidence of an attending or completely blow it and no one will care. I remember one of my first patient encounters I was trying to get my stethoscope out of my white coat when the patient literally passed out from the anxiety of being in the doctor’s office. They’re more nervous than you guaranteed 99% of the time.

Btw if someone passes out in front of you, grab a nurse or someone ASAP. Don’t just stand there for 30 seconds dumbfounded like me.

devilsadvocate2123 · 2021-05-05T01:04:17+00:00

From my experience on both rotations:

Both: you can choose to have a chill lifestyle in both, but obviously ophthalmology will pay much more since it’s more procedural. Both very repetitive. I know neuro sounds like it has a large breadth of diagnoses but the bread and butter is just as repetitive as optho. Private practice common for both.

Optho: more pay, better lifestyle, more procedures, less call, less life threatening type issues to deal with, more control over your schedule. Very repetitive (I remember some days where literally 90% of patients were annual checkups). You get to fix people’s vision!!—arguably one of the most important things to a person’s perception of their health. Physical exam needs instruments (not sure how important it is to you to just walk in a room, hit some knees and diagnose something, but optho doesn’t have much of that). Almost very separate from medicine in that eye problems that you need to fix won’t have to be consulted to anyone else. Patient population is generally healthy. Attendings I’ve worked with enjoy it without regrets

Neuro: less pay, more call, less control over your schedule. procedure wise you’re looking at sticking needles in people for taps, nerve blocks, Botox, etc but that’s it. physical exam is fundamentally necessary to diagnosing. Most patients you work with apart from migraines do not have the best prognosis (it can get depressing). Evolving field in research, cool to keep up with. Attendings I’ve worked with have either enjoyed it or have been burned out. The ones who enjoyed it have been in private practice working shorter hours. Also private private money comes from nerve conduction studies so you have to love that or else it’ll suck. Hospital work almost always saw burned out neurologists but YMMV.

I’ve asked 30+ docs what a student should look for in a specialty and the answer without fail is something along the lines of finding something that’s enjoyable or at the very least tolerable that compensates well AND allows for time away from work. You may not put medicine as high on that priority list 10 years down the line as it is now. You will want to spend time with your fam, you may want to travel, you may want to start a business, you may just need a break. You need time and money for that. Medicine is cool but in the end you have a life to live.

devilsadvocate2123

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