I've wanted to be a doctor since I was 14, you'd think I'd have decided on a specialty by now :/

Today we had a '4th year orientation' which was a 2 hour presentation about how to schedule our electives and such. 4th year requirements are

1) 4 weeks emergency medicine

2) 4 weeks sub-internship in any medicine specialty

3) 4 weeks sub-internship in any surgical specialty [a sub-internship is a 4th year clinical rotation done at a hospital with residency programs. A student will generally select an elective sub-internship, where the student will perform the role of an intern or first year medical graduate, under the supervision of attending physicians. In this way, the student can experience a glimpse of their future career without the burden of full responsibility.] 

4) 7 electives [4 weeks each] 

5) 4 weeks of vacation.

 the trend that connects all of them? NONE of these are actually scheduled by the school, they are just requirements. this is both the beauty and scary aspect of 4th year....we get to schedule the entire year based on our interests. With some rules and restrictions, I can pretty much do a rotation in any hospital in the country. sounds great... except that with that many choices i start to have a panic attack every time i try to think about making a decision. 

the biggest decision of them all...deciding what kind of medicine i want to do for the rest of my life. i thought by now i would have decided but i am still scratching my head, looking around wondering when im going to get that 'ah hah!' moment. its really scary to see my friends make decision and start to set up their audition rotations for next summer while i am still figuring out what i do and dont like.

Here is my list:

-i know i want to be a hospitals [or at least spend most of my time in the hospital...could be a clinic, OR, wards, whatever]

and

-i know i want to do procedures 

thats a short list but i guess i need to start somewhere. I think as i do internal medicine throughout the next 2 months and get to spend time in the ER admitting patients occasionally i will start to see if either of these could be somewhere i could end up.

and while i spend time deciding my specialty, i have to decide what city i want to live in for the 3-4 years after graduation. and while i decide that i have to decide what hospitals i would want to do my residency at in those cities so i can schedule audition rotations at those hospitals during july-october of 2012.

no pressure.