Emergency Med reflections

Been a busy couple of weeks. Professionally, its the middle of the hump right now and emergency medicine has definitely been a roller coaster, if nothing else. Part of me likes the excitement, there are definitely lots more procedures and you really do feel like your doing real medicine. Real world patients, you really do get to learn how to save lives, a little bit of ICU, a little bit of OBGyn, a little bit of peds, a little bit of anesthesia and a little surgery as well as a whole boatload of medicine problems. I do think I miss the safety and security of a structured and slower paced environment like an internal medicine at CPMC. During my shift I always feel like I’m frenetically running around and treading water just to stay afloat. But as Jane said, I will definitely give it till the end of my rotation and having a little patience before really weighing in on it. On the other hand, I do really like it when I am complimented and my confidence level goes up a bit.But man am I tired after doing these shifts.

Right now I think Emergency Medicine would be ideal from a career point of view, higher pay, less hours in the hospital, very interesting and exciting which would allow me to do VC or be an entrepreneur while still supporting myself.

On the other hand, I just like hospital medicine more: a little slower paced but not outpatient, more time and opportunity to think through differentials and read up on diseases. And I kind of like the academic environment and the people are more to my liking, more thinkers than doers. And you have time to think in a less hectic setting where there are still acute things. And you still have the opportunity to do outpatient later on in life. I will definitely say that being in the clinic is definitely a lot more chill than having to go to the hospital every day. It just makes me feel a little inadequate though to think that you really won’t be very proficient with procedures compared to ED with internal medicine. And the pay is almost half that of EM which is unfortunate and I really don’t think the culture is quite there of moonlighting etc.

Maybe all this rumination eventually comes down to that last line.