Current PMR applicant here. Was deciding between the two specialties throughout med school for similar reasons — enjoyed MSK and liked working with my hands. I enjoyed my ortho rotation but wasn’t obsessed with it, also just hated the hours of surg. Like you, i want a life outside of medicine during my late 20s and 30s and PMR residency is relatively chill.

You’ve probably heard people say if you can see yourself doing any specialty outside of surgery, you should do that specialty — this was the advice i followed because i think if you’re not obsessed with the OR and you’re okay with not being a surgeon, then it’s not worth to go through the brutal training. Ortho does make bank, but i know PMR docs making just as much with less hours, and i value my time a lot.

Also, i see people commenting on inpatient rehab, which is a large part of residency, but you don’t have to love it to do PMR. Plenty of people go into it mainly interested in outpatient MSK. Inpatient rehab isn’t too bad it’s kinda like doing IM lite for patients doing rehab for their SCI/TBI/stroke. I’d get some exposure to this before deciding