Quote from John Freeman on July 23, 2022, 4:06 pm

Hello everyone,

next week, I have an interview to decide what will be my next and last rotation (6 months). I think I'm going to go for private practice in the long run because you have more time for yourself and can decide your schedule. Basically, you are a small independent business owner.

My dream was to make a revolution for medicine and to make inventions for medicine. However, I realised in the past year that I'm not willing to pay the cost (poor private life) as it is the academic career pathway (publish or perish, high competition, etc.).

I'm thinking about 2 choices:

Endocrinology (hormone specialty): it's useful for private practice because it's about growth and growth is one of the pillars of paediatrics (all children grow of course). It will be like nephrology: consults and lots of letters. I won't need all the knowledge I will gain there but some will be useful for the future. I could learn some of this stuff on my own or with experience later on.

Intensive care: it's more for hospitalists. At this stage, I think I will still need to work in hospital to gain experience. What is good with this specialty is that you get to learn a lot about physiology which is part of the fundamentals of course. It's difficult to get it because they keep this rotation mainly for people who are going to work as attending physicians in their hospital. I asked it at the last interview and did not get it. I would like to make this experience as it is a rare opportunity. Also, they are one of the few if not the only units with courses every week and a focus on teaching so I would learn a lot. It's good to have done that as a paediatrician in training. I will have a worse lifestyle, but this will be my last rotation and it will be winter so I'm ok with it.

So I'm thinking about asking for intensive care as there are the people who have done intensive care and the others who did not. Endocrinology I might still find an opportunity later on but I feel intensive care is more difficult to get afterwards.

My arguments:

1. It's my last rotation
2. I did not get it last time I asked
3. I got good evaluations on the last rotation and this one
4. I want to be a hospitalist (lie, because they don't give it to people who want to do private practice)

They will ask me about research and I will tell them that it's in standby for the moment with the chief of nephrology because of my exam (true but I don't plan on doing it with him). That is the track I said I wanted to do: academic career so if I tell them I want to do private practice they won't give me intensive care.

As discussed somewhere else, these are not honest people so I have to be strategic and cannot be transparent with these guys.

Thank you Lucio for the advice somewhere else. What has changed is that I passed my theoretical exam so if I pass the practical part I could afford to do intensive care since I won't have to study for the exam.

Do you guys have any input on this? That would be very helpful for me.

Cheers!