Peds, IM, or IM/Peds for my area of interest?

[SB100]

I'm particularly fascinated with inborn errors of metabolism, and I know that many clinical geneticists do peds residencies since these diseases mostly pop up in children. However, now with the treatments that exist that allow patients with these diseases to live longer, I'm hoping to build a niche for myself in taking care of these types of patients as they age and enter adulthood. Would I be better suited going down the traditional path with peds, or doing IM, or both?

By the way, I know you may be saying I haven't been in med school long enough to know what I want to do, which may be the case, but I'm curious what your thoughts are on this.

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[J-Rad]

You need to figure out whether you like Peds, IM, or both. That sounds glib, but why would you make yourself miserable in one field or the other or both if the the specialty (you think you might) like is available from another more palatable pathway? Oh, and buy the way, pay for genetecists (metabolic or otherwise) is generally crap. It's one of those fields that you make less than a generalist, even from peds.

 

[SB100]

Yeah I was warned about the not so good compensation, though a physician I spoke to about this who is in an academic medical center said it can be supplemented with compensation from teaching or consulting w/ pharmaceutical companies, going into health policy in the area (work on getting more newborn genetic screens), etc.