Anesthesiology vs Emergency Medicine.

[otherstuff12321]

3rd-year med student here stuck in the middle.

Should I go for anesthesia, do the 4-year residency, and have a somewhat stable, well-paying, and happy albeit possibly repetitive and slow job (relatively speaking)?

Or should I go into emergency, do the 3-year residency, see all the crazy, ****ed-up **** that society has to offer (which draws me in for some reason) and feel like a doctor but also burn out by the time I'm 40 and call it quits?

Also, EM makes more $$$ per hour, and rural shops especially make bank. But the hours are more intense, and I don't necessarily like talking to patients to begin with.

Anesthesiology is pretty bad ass too, but don't you lose your diagnosing skills and knowledge of general medicine with something so specific? Do you ever wish you did emergency medicine instead?

Thought I was set on anesthesia, but now I'm worried I'll regret not going into EM. My GF is an ED nurse and they never have a dull moment. The environment, team work, pathologies and stories are best in the ED. Makes me jelly.

My step score is 240-250ish and I honored pretty much all of third year.

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[Gern Blansten]

I have never wished I did emergency medicine but I respect those who do. Many EM physicians become disenchanted with the difference between what they thought their practice would be (cool and exciting like an episode of ER) vs what it really is (lots of unnecessary visits that are dumps from their primary care docs, drug seekers, uninsured using the ER for primary care, psych patients that you really can't help with the occasional interesting case interspersed. Many anesthesiologists are disenchanted for similar reasons as our job is frequently very different from what we see during residency as we supervise multiple rooms and put out small fires. Occasionally having an interesting time where your knowledge and skill are the difference between life and death.
There is no perfect specialty, so you just have to figure out where you fit best and which one will be something you want to be doing all the way until you are 60+ years old (unless you invest well and live modestly).

 

[repititionition]

Your choice of future specialty aside, have you even glanced at the EM jobs landscape? It’s catastrophic. Things are cyclical, but the forces at play in EM feel durable to me. One could say that anesthesiology has existential threats as well, but EM went from physician-only to the sky literally falling in the span of 4 years. Anesthesiology has always had our issues “priced in”.

I had an application prepared for both specialties. I look back and can’t believe how fortunate I was to make the choice of anesthesiology. I love the field. The practice is more consistently interesting, the lifestyle is better (for me. I can’t do the constantly varying day/night cycles), and there are way fewer bad smells.

 

[UscGhost]

ER is in pretty bad shape in terms of future employment opportunities. HEAVY utilization of NP and PAs has allowed for many ERs to be run by only 1-2 ER docs overseeing a bunch of RNs.

Hard to find ER jobs

 

[agammaglobulin]

Would you rather do an epidural or pelvic exam at 2am?

 

[ERRES2288]

I have many friends who did ER. All I can say is almost every one of them dislikes their job and tell me they wish they did anesthesia.

 

[Arch Guillotti]

Closing. Duplicate thread in EM forum.