Specialty Stories | Medical School Headquarters | Premed | Medical Student

Session 48 Pediatrics is a primary care specialty. Usually, primary care spots are easy to match into. Does pediatrics keep up the trend? We’ll dig into their data. The reason for this episode is to give you an idea as to how hard or easy it is to match into a specific specialty. I'm getting all of this data from the NRMP Match Results and Data for 2017. An overview: When you're in medical school, you apply to match into residency in the U.S., through an algorithm-based system. The three people who created this algorithm won a Nobel Prize for it. It's not a usual job application where you apply to 40 places, get interviewed in all of them. Then whoever wants you offer you something you say yes or no. With residency matching, you rank based on what programs you like. And the programs will also rank based on who they like. And the magic happens. [02:47] General Summary of the NRMP Match Results and Data for 2017 Table 1 of the NRMP Match Results and Data for 2017 shows the general summary. Pediatrics for

Session 47 Dr. Westley Ohman is an academic Vascular Surgeon in the St. Louis area. We discuss why he chose academics, what makes a good vascular surgeon and more. Good news to all premeds out there! We have a new podcast called http://www.askdrgray.com (Ask Dr. Gray Premed Q&A). Or if you know someone who's a premed, point them to the podcast as well as all our shows on MedEd Media. [01:54] Interest in Vascular Surgery Westley had exposure to vascular surgery from an engineering standpoint as an undergrad. But it wasn't until late in his third year and going into his fourth year with his sub-I's that he had world-class mentors from the cardiac and vascular side of things. He was fortunate enough to be guided in his decision making. They supported him going into vascular seeing that's where his interest and his skill set lie more than on the cardiac side. He likes the interventional approach where you can treat aneurysm in one room with two small needle pokes in the femoral arteries and then patients go ho

Session 46 Dr. Narayan Viswanadhan is a community-based Neuroradiologist in the Tampa area. We discuss why he chose the community, what his day looks like, and much more. He has been out of fellowship training for three years now. Also, check out all our other podcasts on MedEd Media Network. [01:15] His Interest in Radiology and Neuroradiology When applying initially for residency, he applied for internal medicine into several programs. And as he was doing his sub-internships, the was drawn more into radiology. What he likes most about internal medicine is coming up with the differential diagnosis. He likes figuring out the root cause of the problem. But as he kept going into internal medicine, he was going further away from it. And during his radiology elective, he realized he enjoyed being the diagnostician or the doctor's doctor. And this was what drew him into radiology. "I really enjoyed being the diagnostician or the doctor's doctor kind of thing. That drew me to radiology." Moreover, neuroradiolog

Session 45 Dr. Maninder Singh is an academic Cardiac Anesthesiologist. He's been out of his fellowship now for four and a half years. And he's in a large academic medical center in Cleveland, Ohio. In our conversation, we talk about everything that you need to know about the field. Check out The Premed Years Podcast Episode 256 where I interviewed the dean of the brand new medical school, Carle Illinois College of Medicine. Also check out all our other podcasts on MedEd Media. [01:35] Why He Chose Cardiac Anesthesiology Being the medical student that loves everything, he was interested in every rotation he was on. And he found that anesthesiology was the perfect mixture of everything. So it was more of a decision of exclusion where after he excluded everything else, the only one left was anesthesia. What really drove him to the specialty was being close to the fire, and it gets ugly really quickly, then you get to control things and everything gets back to normal. Cardiac was fun for him too. He always h

Session 44 Dr. Michael Egnor is an academic Pediatric Neurosurgeon based in NY. We discuss his long career in the field and his thoughts about what you should know. Michael has been out of fellowship training now for 26 years and is currently a faculty member at Stony Brook University. Also, check out MedEd Media Network for a selection of podcasts to help you on this journey to becoming a physician. [01:25] His Interest in Medicine When Michael was very young, his mother had a brain aneurysm that ruptured. She survived but she had some neurological sequelae. So even when he was young, he was already involved with neurosurgeons. He thought that to be a neurosurgeon was the pinnacle of what one could accomplish in terms of profession. Moreover, he found medicine fascinating. He recalls that he read a book Not as a Stranger back in high school. It was a novel about a doctor but the title just fascinated him. The title actually came from a passage in the Chapter 19 of Job in the Bible. Job was asked how he d

Session 43 Dr. Venkat Gangadharan is a community based Interventional Cardiologist. We discuss his interests in cardiology and his thoughts about the specialty. He also gives his opinions on the latest changes in our healthcare system regarding reimbursement cuts as well as turf wars between specialties. Also, check out all our other podcasts on the MedEd Media Network, including The http://medicalschoolhq.net/ (Premed Years Podcast), http://medicalschoolhq.net/mcat-podcast/ (The MCAT Podcast), http://www.oldpremeds.org/ (The OldPreMeds Podcast), and http://theshortcoat.com/ (The Short Coat Podcast). [01:08] Interest in Cardiology Knowing he wanted to be a cardiologist right on his second year of medical school, Venkat did what he could to figure out. By the time got into residency, his mind changed and considered things like pulmonary critical care or cardiology. Then he got the chance what the cath lab was like and got to see what they do when they treat heart attacks. And he got sold right then. He's th

Session 42 Dr. Vanessa Baute is a Neuromuscular Neurologist. She has been in the academic setting for the last five years out of her fellowship training. We discuss what drew her towards it, what she likes and what she doesn’t, and much more. Also, check out all our other podcasts on the MedEd Media Network. [01:16] Her Interest in Neurology and Neuromuscular Medicine, Patient Types, and Procedures As a medical student, Vanessa was completely blown away by cranial nerves and their complex, visual system. She would read about it and study it and it didn't feel like work. The neuromuscular part evolved from having good mentors in the area for neuromuscular medicine. She enjoys doing procedures as well as the patient population. Not to mention, there was a fellowship spot available. She still sees general neurology patients as with her inpatient work. She considers 75% of her practice as neuromuscular, which is a good chunk. Although she also sees patients having issues of neuropathic pain, different forms of

Session 41 Dr. Denia Ramirez is a general academic Pediatric Neurologist. She talks about her journey to becoming a pedi neuro doc and other things about her specialty. Several weeks ago, we had a pediatric neurologist who specializes in headache medicine. She has been out in practice now for five and a half years after her residency in pediatric neurology. She is in a combined academic and community setting at the University of Tennessee Medical Center (UTMC). Check out our other podcasts on the MedEd Media Network to help you on your journey to medical school. [01:33] Her Interest in Pediatric Neurology When she did her pediatric residency in Costa Rica, she got amazed by how a child gains milestones. She got interested in how things changed, and how they can shift from being so little and happy to somebody and completely against anybody who's a stranger at eight or nine months old. Her father-in-law was also a neurologist. It was around that time when she met her husband. So she got to see more of what a

Session 40 Dr. Alexandra Sowa is a private practice Internal Medicine physician who specializes in Obesity Medicine. She talks about the specialty with us in the podcast. This is a specialty that is relatively new but very important, In the United States and around the world, obesity is becoming more of a problem. But here in the U.S., obesity and being overweight affect two-thirds of our population. Our guest today is trying to change that as an Obesity Medicine specialist. For more stories, tips, and strategies you can learn as a premed or nontrad or you’re preparing for the MCAT, check out all our other podcasts on http://mededmedia.com/ (MedEd Media). [01:17] Interest in Obesity Medicine Not having any idea what it was, Dr. Sowa first got interested in it when she was sixteen years old. It wasn't a specialty then but she was part of one of those scholar med invitationals in Washington, D.C. A speaker named Dr. Pamela Peeke gave an amazing speech about prevention and the role it plays in good medicine.

Session 39 Dr. Bunty Shah is an academic Pain Medicine Physician at Penn State. He completed his residency training in Anesthesiology. He shares the specialty with us. Back in Episode 17, we interviewed a community-based pain medicine doc who came from a radiology background. So you get to hear some differences between these two episodes. Bunty has been out of fellowship training now for two years. He now serves as the Associate Program Director for the Fellowship at Penn State. If you haven’t yet, please check out all our other episodes on http://mededmedia.com/ (MedEd Media) Network. [01:33] An Interest in Pain Medicine When he was in his surgery rotation in medical school in his third year, there was no actual anesthesiology rotation. But it was built into the surgery rotation. It was by chance that he actually encountered anesthesia during his surgery rotation. He met an anesthesiologist during third year rotation in medical school. He learned that anesthesiology was all about an interplay between ph

Session 38 Dr. Julie Krystal is an academic pediatric oncologist. Julie has been out of training now for two years. She discusses what she loves about her job, where she sees the specialty going and what you should do. Please be sure to also check out all our other podcasts over at http://mededmedia.com/ (MedEd Media) for more resources. [01:00] Interest in Becoming a Pediatric Oncology Julie always knew what she wanted to do. Back in high school, she wanted to be child life person where you get to do arts and crafts with kids in the hospital. So she was volunteering at Stanford Children's Hospital where she grew up in California. She was working with a lot of oncology patients. She then realized that the more she got to work with the doctors and see the fellows, they were actually doing a way cooler job than the child life people. That's when she decided it's what she wanted to do in high school and stuck with that. She felt strongly better all throughout her training, through college and all the way throu

Session 37 This week, we take a deep dive into the match data for dermatology. We cover the Match data from 2016 and 2017 to give you an idea of what you're up against. Dermatology is one of the hardest specialties to match into. Historically, it has been known as the ROAD specialties (Radiology, Orthopedics, Anesthesiology, and Dermatology). "Dermatology is still one of the more competitive residencies to apply to as a medical student." As we dive into this data, it gives you an idea of what you should be thinking about or doing when it comes to starting your journey. Hopefully, this will help you determine how much effort you put into getting the best possible board scores and everything else you need to get into dermatology. Also, check out everything we have at MedEd Media Network including The Premed Years Podcast, http://www.oldpremeds.org/ (OldPreMeds Podcast), and http://medicalschoolhq.net/mcat-podcast/ (The MCAT Podcast). [01:51] Match Summary As always, all of this data come from the NRMP Main

Session 36 Dr. Scott Steele is an academic Colorectal Surgeon and Chairman of the Colorectal Surgery Department at Cleveland Clinic. We discuss his love of the specialty. He has now been practicing outside of his fellowship for twelve years now. Dr. Steele also hosts his own podcast called http://www.behindtheknife.org/ (Behind the Knife). Check it out as well as a host of all our other podcasts on the http://mededmedia.com/ (MedEd Media) Network. [01:17] His Interest in Colorectal Surgery Scott knew he wanted to do surgery from the first time he got his clinical years and did some primary care. He also considered orthopedics since he likes sports. But colorectal surgery dawned on him when he met some mentors. Not being a sexy topic, he didn't really give it much time. But he found a mentor when he was in residency. Towards the end of his second year, going into his third year and on his fourth year, he began thinking about colorectal surgery. He hung around them and went to the meeting which he found an inc

Session 35 Dr. Chris Fecarotta is a Pediatric Ophthalmologist. He has been in private practice for five years now. He shares with us his reasons for choosing the specialty and what you should think about if this is a field you’re considering. I would love for you to recommend The Premed Years Podcast to your premed friends along with our other podcasts on the MedEd Media Network. [01:30] Interest in Pediatric Ophthalmology Chris admits he didn't know he wanted to be a pediatric ophthalmologist until late in the game. He figured it out at the beginning of his fourth year. Knowing he always wanted to do kids, he went into medical school thinking he would be a pediatrician of some sort. But he didn't know exactly what. Then he discovered as he went along that he wanted surgery more. He had a friend who had some family members who were in ophthalmology. He talked to them about it and though it was an interesting field. So he decided to put the two together and thought about doing pediatric ophthalmology. He sh

Session 34 Dr. Sushil Duddempudi is a community-based Gastroenterologist who specializes in interventional endoscopy. He has been in practice for ten years now and specifically as an interventional endoscopist for the last seven or eight years. He used to be in academic hybrid private practice. Check out what he thinks about the field and what you should be doing if you're interested in this field. Also check out all our other podcasts on MedEd Media Network. [01:45] An Interest in GI and Interventional Endoscopy Dr. Sushil Duddempudi knew early on that he was going to be in a procedure-based field. It's a running joke in the field that GI people aren't smart enough to do anything else so they use procedures as much as they can. Then leave the complex stuff to the nephrologists, neurologists, and everybody else. Sushil started residency leaning towards cardiology until realizing he hated EKGs. So he gravitated towards the GI field. He says it's not uncommon for students somewhere during their intern year w

Session 33 A lot medical students go through the process end up at a time where they have to submit their rank list and they have no clue what they want to do. And this is a lot of unneeded stress. In this podcast, I talk to a specialist that you can't get hold of so you can understand what is out there for you. Today's guest is Dr. Lauren Strauss, an academic Pediatric Neurologist who specializes in headaches. She is a DO at a large academic medical center for an allopathic residency program. She is currently the Residency Program Director at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center for Pediatric Neurology. Listen to her thoughts on the field and what you should be looking into. Also check out our other podcasts at http://mededmedia.com/ (MedEd Media). [01:50] Interest in Pediatric Neurology Lauren has an interesting background having started in engineering. She did her major at UPenn in bio-engineering. She has always loved science and math. Her grandfather being an engineer and not having any doctors in the fa

Session 32 Dr. Russell Babbitt is a Plastic Surgeon in private practice for the last seven years. He took the time to share with us his thoughts on what he likes and what he doesn't like about it and what you, as a premed or medical student, should start doing now to become a better applicant for Plastic Surgery. [01:18] His Love of Plastics Around that time when the show ER was popular, Russell started medical school thinking he wanted to do Emergency Medicine but realized it wasn't for him. Instead, he liked doing surgical rotation along with his plastic surgery rotation which he describes as gelling very well. He also started college as an art major so the visual-spatial aspects really appealed to him once he got into plastics because it wasn't just a cookbook, do-this-do-that case but it involves applying spatial problems to different situations which appealed to him. The second he got onto his plastic rotation, he knew it was where he needed to be. Russell went to UMass for medical school and during th

Session 31 Dr. Kristen Sahler is a community-based Neurologist who specializes in headache medicine. She has been practicing for four years outside of her fellowship and she shares with us what drew her to it and her advice if you're interested in it. [01:28] Her Path to Headache Medicine Kristen knew she was going to be a neurologist when she was fourteen years old having been motivated by having a family member with Tourette's syndrome so very early on, she was learning about it and about the brain and got fascinated by all of it. She then hyper-focused on that pathway and never gave up on it. As for getting into headache medicine, it wasn't on her radar until her third or fourth year of medical school on her neurology rotation where she was sent to see a headache consult. She became fascinated by the patient's story and thought her interesting visual aura was cool and learned about migraine. By the end of medical school, Kristen has already carved out that headache was the field for her which was confirm

Session 30 This week, we're doing a deep dive into the 2017 Ophthalmology Match Summary Report which is actually outside the NRMP match. The match is the program you apply to while in your medical school to determine where you're going to do your residency. The people that made the algorithm actually won a Nobel Prize for it and it's used in a lot of different things now other than the match. However, not every specialty participates in the main ERAS match which stands for Electronic Residency Application Service put on by the http://www.nrmp.org/ (NRMP) (National Resident Matching Program). Most specialties are part of the main match so when you hear "The Match," this is what most people are talking about. Today, we're covering Ophthalmology, the rare exception that does not participate in the normal match but it's done by the https://www.sfmatch.org/ (SFMatch system). While normal medical student match for their specialties in march, students applying for Ophthalmology match in January. [03:30] Spots Of

Session 29 Dr. Renée Darko is a community-based OB/GYN. In our podcast, she talked about her path to OB, what you should be thinking about during med school, and some tips as you're going through the process of deciding whether OB/GYN is right for you. If you haven't yet, please listen to Episode 127, I dove into the residency match data for OB/GYN. [01:30] Community Setting Practice Renée practices in a community setting. Although at one point, she considered an academic setting while she was in residency but shortly before she graduated from residency, she started realizing that she needed to explore a little bit more of the setting she wanted to be in so she began doing Locum Tenens in terms of practice rather than joining a group or an academic center. During the time she was doing Locum right after she graduated from residency, she also did a Health Policy Fellowship to give her a little bit of time to think of what she wanted to be and what she wanted to do. Renée graduated from her residency in 2010