Pediatrics versus Internal Medicine

[wassabi101]

Hello everyone,

I was hoping some of you who may have already excluded and/or chosen pediatrics for internal medicine or vice versa as a future profession could shed some light as to what they considered important factors when doing so. I'm in my third year of clerkship right now and although I won't be rotating through my internal medicine rotation until this summer, I have a strong interest in both fields and am having difficulties making up my mind in order to set up my electives in advance. I have completed observerships and conducted research in both fields and enjoyed them equally.

Help! :\

Thanks,
wassabi

[Gill0927]

Hi,

I'm only in 2nd year meds, but I may be able to help a tiny little bit with this. Personally, I'm seriously considering paeds and have ruled out internal, and the way I chose is that I'm much happier helping and treating kids than I am adults. Also, I tend not be as comfortable around older adults/the elderly population, which is largely the population that internal medicine sees.

As a helpful hint (hopefully), I heard this advice from a clerk at my school. It was given to someone in the same predicament as you, unable to decide between peds and internal -- if you went into paeds, would you miss treating/seeing adults at all? ( and conversely, if you did internal, would you wish you could see (more or any, depending on your community/position/specialty/etc) kids?) Asking yourself these questions and things may become clearer for you.

Hope that helps a bit,

Gill :)