An OB/GYN attending asked each of the students in our group a very important question halfway through our obstetrics portion of our OB/GYN clerkship: What do you want to be when you grow up?
One of my classmates responded, “Orthopedic surgery,” without a quarter second’s hesitation.
Another, “Trauma surgery.”
The other student and I were a little less decisive. “Well, I loved family medicine, but I also really liked pediatrics. Like outpatient and specialties. And OB has been pretty cool so far. But oooh, we have psychiatry next…”
While I had begun the year certain that I wanted to pursue a career in primary care, my positive experience on OB/GYN over the past two weeks had blurred my once set in stone thoughts. While some of my preconceived notions about certain specialties had been true, other fields surprised me. And the more I learn about the great aspects of many fields, the more confused I’ve become! I loved outpatient family medicine and pediatrics, but is it wrong of me to love deliveries and the detailed patient education involved in outpatient obstetrics and gynecology care, too?
I suppose this is why third-year of medical school is designed the way it is, to give us exposure to as many different fields of medicine as possible to find that one niche that calls to us and makes us feel the most alive. I would never have thought that I would have an ounce of interest in OB/GYN, but here I am having a brief affair with it! I’m excited to see where I end up in ten, or even five years and look forward to learning more about medicine and different specialties as my third and fourth-year of school continue on.
