Specialty Stories | Medical School Headquarters | Premed | Medical Student

Session 28 Dr. Nii Darko is a community-based Trauma Surgeon. He's also an Osteopathic physician. Listen to his journey and what you should be thinking about. Dr. Darko has also been on The Premed Years podcast back in Session 196 and he is the host of the podcast called Docs Outside the Box. [01:05] An Early Interest in Trauma Surgery Practicing for almost five years now, Dr. Darko knew he wanted to be in two points of his life. As a seventeen-year-old, Nii had the opportunity to shadow a trauma surgeon in Newark, New Jersey, with his first exposure to trauma case was a person who got shot where they evaluated the patient and seeing a whole chorus of nurses and different medical staff helping the person. The trauma surgeon he was shadowing was at one corner of the room conducting the stuff, which to him seemed like an orchestra or rather a concerted type of chaos. The patient was taken into the operating room and when the doctor came out, he talked with the family. The doctor comes out of this operating ro

Session 27 This week I'm breaking down and reviewing the match data for OB/GYN. There are a handful of surgical specialties thought to be a good mix of medicine and surgery specialties. OB/GYNE is one of them along with ophthalmology, urology, and ENT. If OB/GYN interests you, take a listen to this episode to see what you need to do! [02:30] Match Summary Table 1 of the NRMP Main Match Data 2017 shows the summary of the match and OB/GYN is listed separately from everything else having its own category. There are 241 OB/GYN programs. Compared to other specialties, Surgery has 267 programs, Internal Medicine has 467 programs, Emergency Medicine has 191 programs. While OB/GYN has 241 programs, there only 1, 288 spots available compared to Emergency Medicine with 191 programs but there are 2,047 spots. That's almost 800 more spots even if there are 50 less programs. Hence, there are less spots per program in OB/GYN. Out of those 1,288 spots, there were 1,202 U.S. Senior applicants. This means there are less o

Session 26 There are many things to think about when you are deciding your future career. In this episode, we discuss how you should start that process. The goal of this podcast is to speak to specialists from every field, both community and academic. But I want to rewind a little bit and talk about the whole process of just thinking about these specialties and the questions you should be asking yourself, and what you should be thinking about as you're going on this journey so that as you listen to these interviews, you will have a better sense of what you're thinking about and your goals in career and life in general. [02:10] Keep an Open Mind A large percentage of premeds that go into medical school know what they want to do. But keep in mind that most medical students change their minds. They may get in a specific field after exposure and research but as they get more involved in the field through rotations and doing a lot more clinical work as a medical student, they realize it's not for them. So realiz

Session 25 Academic Urology is a mix of medicine and surgery. Listen to Dr. Peter Steinberg discuss what drew him to the specialty, whether you and your personality would suit in this field, and what you can do to be a competitive applicant given that urology is one of the more competitive fields out there. [00:50] Academic Practice Dr. Steinberg chose academic practice over a typical community practice for two reason. First, he wants to have a more sub-specialized focus in his practice available in most community practices. Second, he enjoys working in training residents. He has been practicing for seven years now. Peter started residency training in general surgery, which at that time most programs would require you to two years of general surgery prior to four years of urology. So he decided during his intern year to do urology, which was his second rotation as an intern and it was he deemed would fit him and his personality rather than general surgery. It took a while to get into a urology program but h

Session 24 Today's guest is Dr. Judy Melinek, a New York Times bestselling author and a Forensic Pathologist based in California. She documented her journey through her fellowship training in her book, http://www.drworkingstiff.com (Working Stiff: Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner). One important thing to note is that Pathology isn't actually a required rotation in medical school, one reason that it's not commonly under the radar of most medical students. Listen to our discussion about the field of Forensic Pathology and how you can explore if this is something you're interested in. [01:20] Working as a Forensic Pathologist Dr. Melinek does some academic work. She is currently affiliated with UC Davis as a Research Associate. Forensic Science students from their Master's and undergraduate programs shadow her but she isn't presently on staff at any academic institution. Most forensic pathology jobs tend to be for government agencies, either a coroner/medical examiner's office. Any

Session 23 Our episode with Dr. Chris Sahler was one of our most popular episodes. I decided to bring you the PM&R residency match data since many of you seem interested! [02:33] NRMP Main Match Data for 2017 - PGY-1 & PGY-2 Positions Table 1 shows the match summary for all the different specialties and Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation only has 32 programs under PGY-1 positions. This is also one of those specialties where you can match into a PGY-2 spot and you have to separately apply for your internship. This table shows there are 62 programs for PGY-2 positions and that gives you a total of 94 programs. Just be careful when looking at data since some specialties may have they PGY-1 built-in while some do not. Looking at PGY-1 spots, there are 119 positions. This is a relatively smaller program with almost 3 and 3/4 per program. And out of those spots, only one program went unfilled. There are 294 U.S. Seniors applying out of 595 in total who applied. (Remember for the purposes of this podcast when ta

Session 22 Aerospace Medicine is a subspecialty of Preventive Medicine and very unique usually to the military, though there are civilians equivalents. If you are a premed student and you're getting ready to prepare for your medical school interviews, check out The Premed Playbook: Guide to the Medical School Interview. Its paperback version will be released on June 06, 2017. Preorder the book at Barnes and Noble now and you will get about $100-worth of free gift including a 1-month access to our brand-new mock interview platform (only currently available to those who preorder) and a 13-video course on the medical school interview. Text PREORDER to 44222 to get notified with instructions on how to get on this. Back to today's episode, I will be interviewed by Ian Drummond, a fourth year medical student and the host of The Undifferentiated Medical Student podcast. Ian interviewed me back in Episode 24 of his podcast about aerospace medicine and I'm playing a part of his interview with me specifically relat

Session 21 General Surgery is gaining in popularity, which shows in its competitiveness for residency. You need to be on the top of your game to match. And similar to Internal Medicine, it is the gateway to a lot of subspecialties. As we're presenting the data here, remember that this is not just for those looking to be general surgeons their whole life but those who are looking into other subspecialties which we will be featuring here on the podcast in the future such as Surgical Oncology, Colorectal Surgery, Surgical Critical Care, Minimally Invasive Surgery, etc. There are certainly a lot of things you can go on and do after your general surgery residency. The 2017 NRMP Main Match Data is now available since the match happens in March of every year. [01:45] Total Number of Programs and Applicants For General Surgery, there are a lot of physicians available with 267 programs around. There are 236 Psychiatry residencies and 204 Pediatric residencies so that gives you an idea that there are more general s

Session 20 Dr. Stephen Grupke is an attending Neurosurgeon at the University of Kentucky. In our episode today, he discusses the residency path to neurosurgery, what makes you a competitive applicant, his typical day, the types of patients and cases he serves, what he likes best and least about his subspecialty, and more. Stephen and I went to https://www.nymc.edu/ (New York Medical College) together. Currently, he is a neurosurgeon in an academic facility and a new faculty being an assistant professor at the University of Kentucky. [01:30] Choosing the Specialty Stephen knew he wanted to be a neurosurgeon when he was in graduate school. Being a chem major in undergrad, he was working in a lab in grad school. A neurosurgery resident at New York Medical College did a research under his belt and took Stephen under his wing doing experiments and showing him different amazing stuff and he was just taken by it right there. That was actually the first time he saw what it's like to be a neurosurgeon and it was som

Session 19 Today, I'm going to do a deep dive into some match data for Orthopedic Surgery, which is one of the more competitive specialties out there. Let's look at the data to see if this holds true and find out who you can set yourself up for success early on if this is something you’re interested in. In general, Orthopedic Surgery is a surgical specialty. It's a five-year residency with a lot of subspecialties after that. I had Dr. Muppavurapu to talk about being a hand surgeon back in Episode 05 and he talked about the many other things you can do like joints, spine, hand, and so much more. Today we're going to talk generically about ortho residency matching as a medical student. [02:55] Number of Programs, Spots, U.S. Seniors NRMP is the MD application. (If you're reading this way in the future, words like ACGME and AOA won't really mean much because the MD and DO residency programs will have merged assuming all goes well as planned out for 2020.) Looking at Table 1 for the NRMP Results and Data 201

Session 18 If you're a medical student, we are about to launch a new podcast called Board Rounds Podcast, where we focus on the USMLE and COMLEX Step 1 and Level 1. Check us out at MedEdMedia.com. It's going to be a co-branded podcast with MedQuest so stay tuned! Today's guest is Dr. Jacqueline Hubbard, a private-practice Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist. Hear her thoughts on the specialty, what you can do to get involved, and see if this is something you might take interest in. [01:55] Choosing Her Specialty Jacqueline knew she wanted to go to medical school when she was a sophomore in college. Then in medical school, she narrowed down her choices. Having interest in both Pediatrics and Psychiatry, she ended up picking psychiatry and decided on the Child and Adolescent Fellowship. When she was on Pediatrics, she felt like she was being rushed as she wanted to talk more to the patients instead of just doing the physical exam. She wanted to always have more time to sit down and get to know the patients on

Session 17 Dr. Fred Weiss is a Radiologist by training who did a Fellowship in Pain Medicine. However, he's going to share with us today what he likes least about the specialty, part of the reason he's not currently practicing Pain Medicine. Let's jump right in and learn about Pain Medicine! [01:38] Residency and Fellowship Fred is currently an emergency radiologist at Geisinger Health System in Danville although he previously practiced as a Pain Medicine physician in Florida. Finishing his last fellowship in 2014, he's been practicing as an attending for about two years now. He actually did two fellowships, one was a half and half fellowship in Neuroradiology and Musculoskeletal Radiology, and the second was in Pain Medicine in University of Pennsylvania. Prior to medical school, Fred was a physical therapist and he really enjoyed the musculoskeletal system and the nervous system, finding those were the easiest for him to understand, digest, and put into practice. During rotations, Fred enjoyed all the su

Session 16 This week's guest is Dr. Joel Topf, a private practice and academic Nephrologist who loves teaching and the small details. Back in Episode 06 of the Specialty Stories Podcast, we first covered Nephrology where I talked with Dr. Jean Robey, a private-practice Nephrologist. As you get to listen to both episodes, you will hear some differences in both of those settings. My goal for this podcast is to not just give you insights into what a certain specialty does, but also, for you to see the differences between an academic specialty and a community specialty, or a private-practice physician and be able to compare those different settings. As you go through your medical training, most of the exposure you get is the academic side of medicine and that is not the majority of medicine practiced. Hence, I wanted to give you insights into all of the different aspects of it and be able to compare a private-practice Nephrologist (back in Episode 06) and this episode which is more of an academic Nephrologist

Session 15 This week, I speak with Dr. Fayyaz Barodawala, a community-based Interventional Radiologist from Atlanta, Georgia, about his career decisions, what an IR physician does on a daily basis, the struggles and triumphs that come along with his practice and specialties opportunities outside IR and other interesting topics like exclusive hospital contracts and artificial intelligence replacing diagnostics. [01:15] Choosing Interventional Radiology Practicing medicine since 2005, Fayyaz knew he wanted to be an Interventional Radiologist on one particular day during his third day of medical school. He initially found interest in plastic surgery, vascular surgery, and orthopedics. He had exposure to medicine growing up with his parents both physicians but it was on his third year, surgical rotation that he remembered being chewed out after having observed a surgical procedure passively for so long. During that same day, he went to see a family friend how happened to be called in for a pulmonary arteriogram

Session 14 Today, we break down the match data, compensation surveys, and lifestyle reports for Emergency Medicine. If you’re interested in EM, this is a must listen. I also talked about dove into match data back in session 11 specifically on Anesthesiology and now I'm going to dive into Emergency Medicine. If you follow the NRMP results, Anesthesiology is first in the alphabetical order, followed by Child Neurology and then third, Dermatology. However, these two are relatively smaller so I'll reserve a separate discussion on the smaller programs at a later date. For now, let's focus on Emergency Medicine, which is a very popular specialty these days. [02:05] Emergency Medicine at a Glance Back in Session 2, I was able to talk to an Emergency Medicine physician and learned that because of the shift work and the amount of work, it has become popular. What is considered full-time for an Emergency Medicine physician is about 15-16 shifts a month. That is equivalent to three business weeks (Monday through Frid

Dr. Sahler is a community-based Physiatrist. He shares why he chose Physiatry, what he likes about it and gives you advice on how to be competitive.

Session 12 Dr. Chung is a solo private practice Facial Plastic Surgeon. He discusses his path through ENT residency and what he likes and dislikes about his job. Today's guest on Specialty Stories is a solo private practice facial plastic surgeon. It's a great specialty, super sub-specialized specialty of ear, nose, and throat surgeons, or otolaryngology. And Victor, or Dr. Chung, is going to join us and tell us all about it. [02:15] A Personal Choice to Be in Private Practice Dr. Chung practices facial plastics and reconstructive surgery as a subspecialty of otolaryngology; ear, nose and throat surgery. He considers himself as one of the rare breed of private practice, truly private practice solo by himself, the only physician in the office which is an interesting kind of hybrid situation. As a specialist, he is affiliated with a number of the hospitals in the San Diego area, however, he’s not officially on staff who who has to be in the hospital all the time. Nevertheless, he does consultation and coverag

Today we break down the match data, compensation surveys and lifestyle reports for Anesthesiology. If you're interested, this is a must listen.

Dr. Noe is in a solo private practice seeing patients as a Family Medicine physician. She talks about Family Medicine and what you should think about too.

Dr. Leonard is an academic Pediatric Gastroenterologist at MGH. She discusses her life and the path it took to get there and what she does for her patients.