Hi-
I'm a third year medical student and I've been struggling with choosing a specialty. I was wondering if any physicians could give me any insight choosing what to go into. I have been through four rotations and am favoring family medicine. I am also interested in pathology and psychiatry but haven't had any experience with them yet. It's really important to me to pick a family friendly specialty with a decent lifestyle. I'd like to have my first baby during residency. Any input would be greatly appreciated as I feel totally lost. Thanks!

My only advice would be to make sure if you're considering psychiatry you arrange to do an actual outpatient rotation as early as you can, since most places your standard third year psych rotation is entirely inpatient, and not very representative of what being a psychiatrist is actually like!

Hi! I'm finishing in psychiatry / child psychiatry. It can be very family friendly in training and in practice; I'm guessing, a lot more so than family medicine but I'm not sure about pathology. (In residency, to decrease time or take time off, someone has to cover your calls and/or patients. Seems like that'd be pretty easy to do in path!).
I agree that inpt psych is very different from outpatient. Inpatient psych can be a GREAT lifestyle, although that's not where I'm headed. Could you identify to the clerkship director that you're interested in pysch as a career, so that you could arrange time off of inpatient or consults (1/2 day per week even?) so you could see some outpatient work?
Are you interested in child? I LOVE it, and can't understand why more people don't match into it - so if you're interested, TELL someone and you might get a special deal. Like family medicine, I get to see kids and adults if I want to. (will be boarded in psych, speciality boarded in child)

I promised I wouldn't write a long response so that I could get to bed.. but there's lots more to say. Write more and so will I :-)

Psych hands down.

I find FP very family friendly, now that I'm out. Residency was not super-easy, but it wasn't brutal, either. Once you finish you can work part time, or limit your scope of practice to just outpatient and have a decent lifestyle. I love the variety. And I see a ton of psych.

Good point about the mix, residentmom! ND,you could do 2 subIs /AIs, then if you line them up early, decide which fits you better before writing match statements.

I definitely like being a specialist. It gives the illusion that I could learn everything I need to know , whereas you family docs just have to know EVERYTHING. ;-)

How about Peds? I do a lot of psychiatry!

You say you have not had experience yet in Pathology or Psychiatry - I thought I wanted to do Psychiatry until I had my third year clerkship then I realized it was not for me. Too vague, no diagnostic tests available, too much talking and too little diagnosing and making concrete plans. I do, however, really enjoy the social/cultural/psychiatric contexts inherent in primary care. For me, this is perfect. I do diagnose and treat depression and anxiety quite frequently and I imagine this is true in Family Practice as well.

It is hard to know what is right for you until you try it. I think that it is a great comment above about trying to schedule more outpatient experience into your third year Psych clerkship. Be sure to let your clerkship director know you are interested, you will certainly get extra attention and guidance then.

I just have to throw it out...

EM is a lot of psych, a lot of peds, a lot of, well, everything. You don't really get to be an expert at much, other than managing a crashing patient +/- bad airway +/- general badness. But it's an awful lot of fun if you like it.

You'd know if the first 48 hours if it was for you. Most of us liked everything and didn't want to decide.

Can be very family friendly - it is what you make of it.

just a random thought. (Well, not random for ME, I suppose.)

Well I knew within the first 48 hours that EM was NOT for me!!