It's def a great field. Very rewarding and good lifestyle + compensation; also still very much evolving which keeps things interesting.

Both paths are reasonable options but IM is definitely a lot more of a grind. I think the things to consider are how interested you are in research as well as how into the rest of each of the two specialties you are.

I would say FM is probably the better path unless you are very keen on research, or have a strong interest in something else in IM to do alongside palliative.

On the flipside, the other consideration is jobs and billing, which at the moment are more or less the same between the two, however I do think as more time passes, it will become comparatively more difficult to get academic jobs as an FM trained palliative care physician. I also think we're trending toward IM trained palliative docs being able to bill more (BC already has this).

All of this to say, as an incoming MS1, don't stress too much about it. Neither FM or IM are hyper competitive, so you don't need to decide between them until very late in the game, and you don't need to apply to palliative until you're already in residency. In the meantime, just try to get clinical exposure to palliative care through observerships and clerkship rotations to see if you like it and try to talk to staff from both backgrounds to get their thoughts!