The Undifferentiated Medical Student

Your virtual mentor for choosing a medical specialty and planning a career in medicine

Interview format

Every physician interviewed is asked a very similar set of questions related to the following 3 lines of inquiry.

The Short Version

Part 1: “Tell us about your specialty”

Part 1 will focus on the more objective aspects of the medical specialty of the physician being interviewed.

Part 2: “Tell us about how you decided this specialty was right for you”

Part 2 will focus on the story of how the physician being interviewed decided on her specialty and the algorithm she’d recommend to anyone approaching the decision today.

Part 3: “Give us advice for long-term career planning irrespective of your choice of specialty”

Part 3 will focus on how the physician being interviewed would advise someone plan his career irrespective of his choice of specialty. The insights shared in this part of the interview might just alter the course of your life for the next 40 years.

Each interview offers actionable advice about how to choose a specialty, but the true promise of The Undifferentiated Medical Student podcast is to help move med students from struggling with this decision to proactively plotting the trajectory of their careers well beyond residency.

 

The Full Version

Part 1: “Tell us about your specialty”

  • I read a description of the guest’s medical specialty from the AAMC’s Careers in Website website, let them opine, and then ask what they think medical students should know about their specialty to be well informed about their specialty, before I jump into my follow up questions.
  • My follow-up questions include:
    • What does a typical (daily/weekly/monthly) routine, a typical patient, and a typical outcome for this patient look like?
    • What is generally considered to be most exciting about your specialty, and what is considered to be most mundane?
      • Note: many physicians lament that “charting” and “paperwork” are most mundane. However, because these things are not unique to any one specialty, so I encourage them to share the mundanities that are unique to their specialty.
    • What is one thing you wish you had known before entering your specialty? And what would you encourage a medical student to think about in earnest before committing to going into your specialty?
    • How does the practice of your specialty change based on setting: inpatient vs. outpatient; academic vs. private vs. public; urban vs. rural; civilian vs. military vs. governmental; national vs. international.
    • What is the biggest challenge facing your specialty, and where do you predict your specialty will be in 10 or 20 years?
    • Others.
  • I then ask about resources they used and would recommend others use to learn more about their specialty.

Part 2: “Tell us about how you decided your specialty was right for you“

  • I ask each guest to tell us the STORY of how they chose their specialty, including struggles, insights, and the eventual ‘ah-HA’ moment when it all made sense.
  • My follow-up questions will include:
    • What did you struggle with and what factors (personal or professional) ended up weighing most heavily for you in your decision?
    • Was there ever a head-to-head decision between 2 or more specialties, and, if so, what made you decide to choose the route that you did?
    • The 3rd Year Question: If you were a 3rd year medical student, undecided on speciality with limited time remaining before residency applications were to be submitted, what do you think would be the fastest, highest-yield route to making the decision?
    • Others.
  • Again, I ask about resources they would recommend to aid in making this decision.

Part 3: “Give us advice for long-term career planning irrespective of your choice of specialty”

  • In this section I ask the following questions:
    • If you could go back and do it all again, what would you do differently, and what would you do the same, and why?
    • What is a career mistake that you have seen other physicians make? What is something you have seen another physician do well that has made you want to emulate it?
    • What is one thing you are struggling with or lamenting about your career today, what are you doing to remedy it, and what would you encourage a medical student to do right now to help avoid this problem entirely later?
  • I end the interview by asking “What is one book, medical or non-medical, that you think every person pursuing a career in medicine should read?”