Since I started blogging, I had a decent idea that I wanted to go into interventional radiology or surgery. I realized that I liked procedures and I liked the physics of radiology. Interestingly enough, I was receiving feedback from my internal medicine attending and he basically told me to strongly consider cardiology. This was striking because it was the first time someone had suggested a career path for me by assessing my strengths. I’ve spent the last week or so seriously toying with the idea of going into cardiology–and eventually doing interventional cardiology or electrophysiology.
One thing I’ve realized is that the vast majority of physicians that I respect or want to emulate are ones who are specialists in internal medicine. For instance, during my peds rotation, there was an infectious disease doctor that knew the medical literature like the back of his hand and I remember thinking to myself that I wanted to be that way. Even now, during my IM rotation, the attendings I’ve worked with place a huge emphasis on evidence-based medicine. That’s not to say that other branches of medicine like interventional radiology or surgery don’t do this at all, I simply noticed it more during IM. In addition, I’ve always loved physiology and the heart has always been one of my favorite organs.
As someone who wants to do research, I think that cardiology is an excellent avenue for this given that the leading cause of death is heart disease. I’m pretty excited to have figured this out right before fourth-year is about to begin!
