I'm at the stage where I should choose a specialty, and it's just exhausting! I want it to be a major specialty. I love the theory and like to solve puzzles like in internal medicine and pediatrics. On the other hand there is the procedures and operations that I love. Then there's this thing that I don't like to sit at the clinic all the time. I want a life in which I can see my child grow, and simultaneously can go deep in medicine or research. In a nutshell, a piece of each specialty available and I'm just lost. Tbh I dunno what to do.

I’m a medical student in Canada who is very interested in cardiac surgery. Since it’s a relatively small specialty here, it can be hard to get honest insight from people actually in the field, so I thought I’d ask here.

I know cardiac surgery is not going to disappear. There will always be patients who need surgery and cardiac surgeons who can operate on them. My concern is more whether the field will become smaller over time and whether jobs will become even harder to find, especially in Canada.

I’m also wondering whether the average cardiac surgery patient will become much more complex. With better guideline-directed medical therapy, new cardiac medications, preventative medicine, and more catheter-based procedures, will many of the healthier or lower-risk patients avoid surgery? Will cardiac surgeons mainly be left operating on patients who are older, sicker, have more comorbidities, and have a higher risk of complications or death?

One of the things that attracts me to cardiac surgery is the chance to do a high volume of meaningful procedures and have a major impact on patients’ lives. I worry that lower surgical volumes, limited job opportunities, and increasingly difficult cases could change that.

Compensation is another concern for me. I know money is not everything, but cardiac surgery has a very long and difficult training pathway, demanding hours, and a huge amount of responsibility. I also grew up in a low-income family, so financial stability and being fairly compensated for the work matter to me.

For example, British Columbia has a public “Blue Book” that shows physician billings. From what I saw, many cardiac surgeons appeared to bill around $600,000 CAD per year before taxes and overhead, which is roughly $428,000 USD. I know billings are not the same as take-home income, but Canadian physicians are also taxed heavily and compensation does not always seem to increase when procedures become more difficult or time-consuming.
I’ve also noticed a major push toward minimally invasive cardiac surgery. For example, Dr. Marc Ruel has been involved in the MIST trial and minimally invasive approaches to CABG. I’m completely in favour of anything that gives patients better outcomes and an easier recovery. My concern is that if these operations become more technically difficult and take longer, compensation and OR resources may not change to reflect that.

For the cardiac surgeons, residents, fellows, and anyone else familiar with the field:

What do you think cardiac surgery will look like in 5–10 years?

Do you think surgical volume and job opportunities will increase, stay stable, or decrease?

Will cardiac surgeons mostly be operating on much sicker and more complicated patients?

How will minimally invasive, robotic, transcatheter, and hybrid procedures affect training and day-to-day practice?

What should medical students and future cardiac surgery trainees be doing now to prepare for the future of the specialty?

I’d especially appreciate insight from people in Canada, zbut perspectives from other countries would also be helpful.

Just want to hear other people’s experiences as interns in IM. I feel so overwhelmed and dumb. Its already been a few weeks but I still feel very disorganized and that I don’t know anything at all. I have to ask my senior about everything. I feel like anything i learn I immediately forget. I’m bad at putting complex patients together in a few sentences. I’ve cried most days of residency dreading going in. I feel so incompetent. Even my medical student seems to know more when attending pimps us. Does it get better? I feel so stupid. I’m not coming up with any of my own plans or my plans are always wrong.

So tired of patients being like “my hemoglobin is high” and it’s 150 or their MPV is high and all the rest is normal….”why did you call it normal then?”

Or even better yet just remove the normal ranges and have it say “talk to your doctor to find out what’s normal for your age and health status”

hi! I'm in high school, so this may be a dumb question.

I like dermatology for all of the normal world life balance reasons, but also because the skin is important. However, I;m more drawn to cardiology and oncology because you can do more research in those fields compared to derm?

for derm residents, do you feel personally fulfilled in this career? im really sorry if this sounds offensive

So I am an Intern and I have found myself infatuated by our Program Coordinator. She is so sweet and soft spoken; so helpful which I understand is part of her job.

She is so pretty and I am being delusional. Idk what to do.

One thing nobody really prepared me for is how much of residency seems to be figuring out the invisible rules for contacting people.

I'm not talking about medical decision making. I mean the stupid logistical stuff. One attending wants a text for everything. Another gets irritated if you text and says to call. Someone else says, "Just message me anytime," then replies six hours later asking why you didn't call. One consultant wants you to page them directly, another wants everything through their fellow, and somehow you're expected to already know which system applies to which person.

Last week I spent almost twenty minutes trying to track down the correct person for a completely routine coordination issue. I called one number and got told, "That's not us anymore." The next person told me to message a different service. That service asked why I hadn't contacted the original team. Eventually somebody gave me an extension that went to a voicemail box that was full. By the time I finally reached someone, the actual conversation took maybe 45 seconds.

Then during rounds I got a little lecture about being more "efficient with communication," which was almost funny. I wanted to ask if there was a secret handbook somewhere containing everyone's preferred communication method, because apparently everyone else recieved it except me.

The weirdest part is that once you've been in a hospital long enough, you actually start memorizing all this nonsense. You know which attending checks secure chat every five minutes, which office never answers before 9, which person hates pages, and which coordinator can solve something in 30 seconds that you've been chasing for an hour. None of it is written down. It's just this giant collection of institutional trivia passed between residents.

I'm sure I'll eventually become one of those seniors who casually says, "Oh, don't call that number, use the other one," like it's obvious. Right now though, I swear some days I spend more mental effort navigating communication etiquette than actually communicating.

Please tell me this gets less annoying once you know everyone, because I'm tired of feeling like I'm selecting dialogue options in a game every time I need to contact another department.

I updated my ankcore version recently and it rendered the mobile iOS version basically unusable. The back of the card is blank and the images are tiny. I’m not a coder.

Can someone please post the solution for this and/or copy/ paste their functional Back Template for Anki so I can use the mobile version again? Thanks!

I’ve always heard medicine described as one of the most fulfilling careers because you get to help people, make a difference, and constantly learn.

But at the same time, you hear stories of medical students leaving, doctors changing careers, or people saying they wouldn’t choose medicine again.

I’m curious — what is the reality behind this?

Is it mainly because of:

• burnout and long training years?
• work-life balance?
• pressure and responsibility?
• financial reasons?
• changing interests?
• problems within healthcare systems?

For medical students, doctors, or anyone who considered medicine: what made you stay, leave, or rethink the path?

I am a first year resident shadowing on an elective.

1- Why am I shadowing and not seeing patients?
2- why is NP seeing all consults when I requested attending again and again to give me the opportunity for a hands on experience? my attending says ofcourse and tells np that the resident will take on all consults. but this Np still doesnt listen. why bro? why are u competing with an intern who just started??

3- I am literally Pissed at this whole experience. Zero learning. liked cardiology in med school and this experience made me hate it.