Sometimes I look back on my path and wonder what would have happened if I had decided to become something else. Something else physician wise, that is. I'm not known for my patience as a general practitioner. So internal medicine, family practice, general surgery, pediatrics, and even OB/Gyn were without a chance for my interest. Psychiatry just didn't excite me in the least.
But any of the surgical subspecialties have interested me at one time or another (orthopedics, urology, ophthalmology, ENT). I always say that if perhaps the ophthalmology thing hadn't interested me enough, I would likely have seriously considered the field of otolaryngology, or ear, nose, and throat. But could I really have done that?
Their program is clearly more difficult to get through than ours. First and foremost, it's a year longer. Then, there's the fact that their first year is riddled with lots of general surgery intern scut. Internal medicine scut is one thing, but general surgery scut is an entirely different beast since you spend about zero time in the operating room (at least at our medical center - perhaps elsewhere the training is better). Then, their call is overall worse than ours in terms of busyness. Anybody taking home call can have bad days. Although, let's face it, dermatology home call does not tend to equate to much work over the weekend. Any who think it does needs to take one of our weekend calls for perspective. The benefit for ENT folks is that there are more of them splitting the task of first call. We have six, they have a few more. Two or three more may not sound like much, but believe me, it is. We have been blessed in that the transition from the staggered start program to the traditional start program has given us a periodic surplus of residents.
Could I have done it? Sure, but I probably wouldn't have the time to do this.
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