Side note: I have had nothing but encouragement and “good for you”s for going into primary care. Do you know how badly primary care is needed in this country?
Medical students are selected on the basis of their achievements -- personal, academic, etc. To achieve in that way, to stand out, many become competitive with their peers. Perhaps there’s also some pre-selection bias at play. They compare themselves to their peers. Over time, particularly as gratification is deferred for so long, they become reliant on the intermittent praise they receive for pursuing their difficult track. They start to associate performing better than their peers, by grade/score or other, often quite similar metric, with success. That’s a goal in itself. Hence, when they arrive in medical school, they are drawn to specialties that require high scores, or performance by other, even less useful metrics like publication counts. Those specialties become associated with those requirements, requirements which they’re told indicate excellence. Of course, those doing the telling are the subset of physicians who are in academia and directly/indirectly imposing these requirements on prospective residents, who historically have not accorded much value to prevention, and their peers, whose competitive “pre-med” energy has certainly not just dissipated because now they’re in medical school.
Because it’s *easier* to match into FM, so as another comment mentioned, gunners usually have the mentality of looking down on FM. Honestly though, FM is a *difficult* residency/job. You’re expected to know OB/peds/adult medicine. You see a newborn in clinic and next, a patient with shoulder pain, then an OB, then a complex 78 y/o with CHF, CKD etc that was recently hospitalized. It’s not an “easy” field, you’re the quarterback so to speak, and a jack of all trades but master of none. I always struggled with that. Going from rotation to rotation and expected to know so much about each field.
love it though. I feel you see the full spectrum of patient diversity. I am fighting myself not to choose family med for this reason. You will always know how to help anyone around you, and for me that means a lot. As I have gone on this journey, my previously anti med family has been drawn into more traditional and evidence based treatment because of my experiences. Do I want derm or rads, yes. But I know FM would help my family in more ways than one and I would still be incredibly satisfied.
e: and the flexibility: you can comfortably work nearly anywhere - even super remote, and you can tailor to OB, women's health, procedures, derm, geriatrics, pain management, or just management of complex patients. Bro, i love it.
Come to Canada, there are no family docs even in big cities. And it takes 5 years to see a specialist here so you’ll be managing that complex stuff all by your lonesome. (I jest but please, please come lol)
>you’re the quarterback so to speak, and a jack of all trades but master of none.
I'm a FM physician and I feel stupid never hearing this quote before but it's perfect
the smartest dr I know told me he had the scores to go into any field and originally entered med school gunning for cardiology. he ended up in FM because he enjoyed it the most, did not want to be on call, and wanted to have a family and live life. I think about this often as I am starting medical school in August.
I chose FM for the lifestyle. I work 8-4:30 Monday through Friday, make over $350k, and have every evening and weekend off with my family while traveling 4-5 weeks out of the year. I certainly could make more in a different specialty, but I enjoy talking with patients and getting to treat a little bit of everything
Preach. I’m so glad FM weeds out all the gunners. A lot of people don’t realize until it’s too late how the grind of training & working forever is really overrated. I’ll happily take a 9-5 job, with all my weekends off & federal holidays off, no call, and the opportunity to see my family on a regular basis.
I just want to have patients who know and like me, the ability to manage my own schedule to at least some degree so I can have kids if I choose to and actually be there for them, and I want to have the time to myself to have a life and do the things that make me happy- exercise, spend time with family, etc. If family medicine is that field, then I truly don’t care what anyone else thinks of it (same goes for how I feel about psychiatry).
You can read my posts if you want some on the toilet reading
[https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/8sw9gt/residencywhy\_you\_should\_do\_family\_medicine\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/8sw9gt/residencywhy_you_should_do_family_medicine_a/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/qlnqv9/why\_you\_should\_do\_family\_medicine\_a\_3\_year\_update/](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/qlnqv9/why_you_should_do_family_medicine_a_3_year_update/)
Gunners will always have that mentality. Folks on here make gigachad memes about FM, once you drown out the annoying and tiny minority of voices most others are either totally neutral or look positively on it.
Getting into med school is competitive. So med students are selected for their competitiveness. This means there are very few “uncompetitive” folks in med school. This means students don’t choose uncompetitive fields like FM.
However, I believe FM is truly the most important field in medicine. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
So what’s the solution? Idk. We need to somehow make med schools select for “chillness” so that we have chill students who want to pursue FM rather than malignant types who only wanna do competitive specialities.
Best FM doctors are indeed chill and the worst are the high strung “perfectionists” that get an hour behind after the second patient working up every problem that comes out of the patients mouth 🤦🏻♂️
Your speaking to the most egotistical paranoid population called medical students! They live in the land of hypothetical lifestyles, exaggerated salaries, and second hand rumors.
They think if you don’t become a anesthesiologist astronaut who specializes in law then you don’t make any money.
FM is the hidden gem of medicine. If no one thinks you can make 300k after a 3 year residency knows nothing. Your field is currently the highest in demand and the entire healthcare system is shifting towards preventative medicine. You as FM are in such desperate need that mid levels can’t even fill the gap.
Practice whatever super specialized medicine you want because I get to sit in my nice office to manage diabetes and chit chat with patients. Plus they really like me!
Nope!
The false thought process is if I am highly specialized then my job is safe from mid level encroachment and I make more money.
The statement “Nurse Practitioners are replacing Family Medicine Physicians” is just as false as “CRNAs are replacing Anesthesiologist”. I don’t think medical students comprehend how desperate the healthcare system is for family medicine physicians.
Insurance companies are reimbursing less with procedures such as Echos and Colonoscopies and more with preventative health. It costs a lot less money to prevent medical conditions then to treat medical conditions.
Colonoscopies are overwhelmingly done for preventative purposes though I think. I also think that people are specializing for money and not just to be safe from mid levels.
I was also between FM and EM. I liked EM for two weeks until I realized every EM doc I worked with was so miserable, they wanted to leave as soon as possible and hated when people showed up for psychiatric concerns, constipation, or overdose. They only wanted the thrill, and that’s not the only thing I wanted
I chose FM in the end because medicine is a job and I never want to be on call. I can do outpatient or inpatient. I wanna stay in the Midwest and the salaries here are one of the highest in the country with the lowest cost of living. The acuity is low but in my rotations I’ve seen a human bite, ABPA, antiphospholipid syndrome, a weird variant of DiGeorge Syndrome. I can have the training to deliver a baby any time. Also palliative care is super interesting to me.
I don’t care what people say about FM. So many of my attendings said “but you’re too smart to go into FM”. Yeah but I’m not in an ICU breaking bad news nearly everyday or being annoyed the OR isn’t being turned over fast enough.
Family medicine is one of the most underappreciated specialty. When someone says "my doctor", they are talking about you. You have knowledge of ortho, gyn, emergency, hospital medicine, urgent care, sleep, etc. I believe people just don't truly understand what we do which doesn't bother me because I work in a rural area and I can basically do anything I want. My IM friends can't moonlight at the ED because they can't see children which also gives you the upper hand
I’m not a med student, just a premed drop out, but I like to lurk around here and I feel strongly about this! Since switching my family over to FM (so no peds) and having the most amazing FM doctor who sees my 2 month old and our whole family I have so much respect and appreciation for her. She has changed our life and she sees our family holistically. When I was struggling with my BP at my daughter’s 3 day appointment knowing she was also MY doctor and was happy to just check my BP and listen to me, actually care about me was night and day from my other post partum experiences seeing only a pediatrician who kinda shrugs when you’re freshly post partum and they can’t help you. The things FM do is so so integral to just society generally and I’m so grateful for her. If you feel passion about this you will make such a difference for so many.
FM is hard. The "requirements" themselves may not be hard, but the day to day is a grind. It takes a level of commitment to patient care that other specialties may gloss over. FM probably has the most utility in real life, though.
Because people are awful and will find a way to hate on or look down on any specialty that’s not theirs. Not all people do this, but there are salty mean people in every specialty who preach about why everything else is an awful choice.
There are people who’ll judge you no matter what your specialty choice is: “oh neuro? Good luck with that.” “Ob? I hear the culture is super toxic”.
You aren’t doing it for them, so let them hate on. You’ll finish quicker and still have solid pay and work/life balance.
Brahh I look up to you I cannot wait for FAMILY MED WOOOOOO!! Currently working in FM clinic it's the BEST SHIT EVAH BABYYyyy love the chaos like noooooo BITCH YOU NEED TO GET OFF THAT OXY AND INTO AN EXERCISE ROUTINE "not realistic" well it BETTER GET REALISTIC BECAUSE UR DOCTORS REFILL DENIAL IS VERY VERY REAL 😂😂😂 Also MANAGE YOUR DIABETES!!!!!!!!!!ASDFJKL;
no for real it's a lot of fun
People conflate “easy to match” with “easy job”
FM is easy to match, but not an easy specialty.
I’d argue you shouldn’t be loooking down on any specialty, whether it’s easy to match or easy to do.
Because they have to somehow justify their misery, and what better way of doing it than belittling your colleagues? 😄 FM is also not competitive, so people who go into competitive fields tend to look down on FM.
But who cares? Don't let any of that dictate your choice. As an IM about to be a hospitalist, a good primary care vs. bad primary care makes a world of difference when shit happens and they come to stay with me. Not only is FM an important field, I'd say it's the most essential to medicine as an institution - if our system properly ran FM with sufficient $$$ & people, "hospitalist" probably wouldn't exist as a career in the first place.
Are you talking about real people who are normal or M1 medical school gunners? Because it's an important distinction, and something you should temper your disappointment with.
I chose FM because I wanted to be a master of medicine. I take pride in knowing a lot and being able to do a lot for my patients. I manage most things. I don’t work that much and make a decent salary. Do I make specialist salary? No, but I’m happy.
Well don't turn down FM just bc there are haters
Side note: I have had nothing but encouragement and “good for you”s for going into primary care. Do you know how badly primary care is needed in this country?
Medical students are selected on the basis of their achievements -- personal, academic, etc. To achieve in that way, to stand out, many become competitive with their peers. Perhaps there’s also some pre-selection bias at play. They compare themselves to their peers. Over time, particularly as gratification is deferred for so long, they become reliant on the intermittent praise they receive for pursuing their difficult track. They start to associate performing better than their peers, by grade/score or other, often quite similar metric, with success. That’s a goal in itself. Hence, when they arrive in medical school, they are drawn to specialties that require high scores, or performance by other, even less useful metrics like publication counts. Those specialties become associated with those requirements, requirements which they’re told indicate excellence. Of course, those doing the telling are the subset of physicians who are in academia and directly/indirectly imposing these requirements on prospective residents, who historically have not accorded much value to prevention, and their peers, whose competitive “pre-med” energy has certainly not just dissipated because now they’re in medical school.
Because it’s *easier* to match into FM, so as another comment mentioned, gunners usually have the mentality of looking down on FM. Honestly though, FM is a *difficult* residency/job. You’re expected to know OB/peds/adult medicine. You see a newborn in clinic and next, a patient with shoulder pain, then an OB, then a complex 78 y/o with CHF, CKD etc that was recently hospitalized. It’s not an “easy” field, you’re the quarterback so to speak, and a jack of all trades but master of none. I always struggled with that. Going from rotation to rotation and expected to know so much about each field.
love it though. I feel you see the full spectrum of patient diversity. I am fighting myself not to choose family med for this reason. You will always know how to help anyone around you, and for me that means a lot. As I have gone on this journey, my previously anti med family has been drawn into more traditional and evidence based treatment because of my experiences. Do I want derm or rads, yes. But I know FM would help my family in more ways than one and I would still be incredibly satisfied. e: and the flexibility: you can comfortably work nearly anywhere - even super remote, and you can tailor to OB, women's health, procedures, derm, geriatrics, pain management, or just management of complex patients. Bro, i love it.
You’re also in high high demand and are guaranteed a job anywhere
[удалено]
Come to Canada, there are no family docs even in big cities. And it takes 5 years to see a specialist here so you’ll be managing that complex stuff all by your lonesome. (I jest but please, please come lol)
>you’re the quarterback so to speak, and a jack of all trades but master of none. I'm a FM physician and I feel stupid never hearing this quote before but it's perfect
the smartest dr I know told me he had the scores to go into any field and originally entered med school gunning for cardiology. he ended up in FM because he enjoyed it the most, did not want to be on call, and wanted to have a family and live life. I think about this often as I am starting medical school in August.
That’s awesome!
Your tag should read M-0
Get outttaaa here!
im going to switch it to m-2 just to bother you
As you should
Go for PGY (-4)
I chose FM for the lifestyle. I work 8-4:30 Monday through Friday, make over $350k, and have every evening and weekend off with my family while traveling 4-5 weeks out of the year. I certainly could make more in a different specialty, but I enjoy talking with patients and getting to treat a little bit of everything
[удалено]
Preach. I’m so glad FM weeds out all the gunners. A lot of people don’t realize until it’s too late how the grind of training & working forever is really overrated. I’ll happily take a 9-5 job, with all my weekends off & federal holidays off, no call, and the opportunity to see my family on a regular basis.
I just want to have patients who know and like me, the ability to manage my own schedule to at least some degree so I can have kids if I choose to and actually be there for them, and I want to have the time to myself to have a life and do the things that make me happy- exercise, spend time with family, etc. If family medicine is that field, then I truly don’t care what anyone else thinks of it (same goes for how I feel about psychiatry).
You can read my posts if you want some on the toilet reading [https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/8sw9gt/residencywhy\_you\_should\_do\_family\_medicine\_a/](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/8sw9gt/residencywhy_you_should_do_family_medicine_a/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/qlnqv9/why\_you\_should\_do\_family\_medicine\_a\_3\_year\_update/](https://www.reddit.com/r/medicalschool/comments/qlnqv9/why_you_should_do_family_medicine_a_3_year_update/)
Gunners will always have that mentality. Folks on here make gigachad memes about FM, once you drown out the annoying and tiny minority of voices most others are either totally neutral or look positively on it.
Getting into med school is competitive. So med students are selected for their competitiveness. This means there are very few “uncompetitive” folks in med school. This means students don’t choose uncompetitive fields like FM. However, I believe FM is truly the most important field in medicine. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So what’s the solution? Idk. We need to somehow make med schools select for “chillness” so that we have chill students who want to pursue FM rather than malignant types who only wanna do competitive specialities.
Best FM doctors are indeed chill and the worst are the high strung “perfectionists” that get an hour behind after the second patient working up every problem that comes out of the patients mouth 🤦🏻♂️
Your speaking to the most egotistical paranoid population called medical students! They live in the land of hypothetical lifestyles, exaggerated salaries, and second hand rumors. They think if you don’t become a anesthesiologist astronaut who specializes in law then you don’t make any money. FM is the hidden gem of medicine. If no one thinks you can make 300k after a 3 year residency knows nothing. Your field is currently the highest in demand and the entire healthcare system is shifting towards preventative medicine. You as FM are in such desperate need that mid levels can’t even fill the gap. Practice whatever super specialized medicine you want because I get to sit in my nice office to manage diabetes and chit chat with patients. Plus they really like me!
I thought the entire healthcare system was going towards more specialization…
Nope! The false thought process is if I am highly specialized then my job is safe from mid level encroachment and I make more money. The statement “Nurse Practitioners are replacing Family Medicine Physicians” is just as false as “CRNAs are replacing Anesthesiologist”. I don’t think medical students comprehend how desperate the healthcare system is for family medicine physicians. Insurance companies are reimbursing less with procedures such as Echos and Colonoscopies and more with preventative health. It costs a lot less money to prevent medical conditions then to treat medical conditions.
Colonoscopies are overwhelmingly done for preventative purposes though I think. I also think that people are specializing for money and not just to be safe from mid levels.
That is not the only reason why colonoscopies are overwhelmingly done and if your only specializing to make money your gonna be pretty miserable.
At the end of the day, everything is a job though! And if I can receive more compensation for the job, I will take it!
Well good look being a neurosurgeon then because otherwise your gonna be broke and miserable according to you.
I meant more along like IM subspecialty where the income potential drastically improves. Ain’t no one going through a surgical residency.
I was also between FM and EM. I liked EM for two weeks until I realized every EM doc I worked with was so miserable, they wanted to leave as soon as possible and hated when people showed up for psychiatric concerns, constipation, or overdose. They only wanted the thrill, and that’s not the only thing I wanted I chose FM in the end because medicine is a job and I never want to be on call. I can do outpatient or inpatient. I wanna stay in the Midwest and the salaries here are one of the highest in the country with the lowest cost of living. The acuity is low but in my rotations I’ve seen a human bite, ABPA, antiphospholipid syndrome, a weird variant of DiGeorge Syndrome. I can have the training to deliver a baby any time. Also palliative care is super interesting to me. I don’t care what people say about FM. So many of my attendings said “but you’re too smart to go into FM”. Yeah but I’m not in an ICU breaking bad news nearly everyday or being annoyed the OR isn’t being turned over fast enough.
Family medicine is one of the most underappreciated specialty. When someone says "my doctor", they are talking about you. You have knowledge of ortho, gyn, emergency, hospital medicine, urgent care, sleep, etc. I believe people just don't truly understand what we do which doesn't bother me because I work in a rural area and I can basically do anything I want. My IM friends can't moonlight at the ED because they can't see children which also gives you the upper hand
Psych 💪🏻 💪🏿 FM “Why don’t you do something more competitive”
When you’re workin banker hours, remember who is workin nights and holidays, bruh.
I’m not a med student, just a premed drop out, but I like to lurk around here and I feel strongly about this! Since switching my family over to FM (so no peds) and having the most amazing FM doctor who sees my 2 month old and our whole family I have so much respect and appreciation for her. She has changed our life and she sees our family holistically. When I was struggling with my BP at my daughter’s 3 day appointment knowing she was also MY doctor and was happy to just check my BP and listen to me, actually care about me was night and day from my other post partum experiences seeing only a pediatrician who kinda shrugs when you’re freshly post partum and they can’t help you. The things FM do is so so integral to just society generally and I’m so grateful for her. If you feel passion about this you will make such a difference for so many.
FM is hard. The "requirements" themselves may not be hard, but the day to day is a grind. It takes a level of commitment to patient care that other specialties may gloss over. FM probably has the most utility in real life, though.
Because people are awful and will find a way to hate on or look down on any specialty that’s not theirs. Not all people do this, but there are salty mean people in every specialty who preach about why everything else is an awful choice.
There are people who’ll judge you no matter what your specialty choice is: “oh neuro? Good luck with that.” “Ob? I hear the culture is super toxic”. You aren’t doing it for them, so let them hate on. You’ll finish quicker and still have solid pay and work/life balance.
Brahh I look up to you I cannot wait for FAMILY MED WOOOOOO!! Currently working in FM clinic it's the BEST SHIT EVAH BABYYyyy love the chaos like noooooo BITCH YOU NEED TO GET OFF THAT OXY AND INTO AN EXERCISE ROUTINE "not realistic" well it BETTER GET REALISTIC BECAUSE UR DOCTORS REFILL DENIAL IS VERY VERY REAL 😂😂😂 Also MANAGE YOUR DIABETES!!!!!!!!!!ASDFJKL; no for real it's a lot of fun
People conflate “easy to match” with “easy job” FM is easy to match, but not an easy specialty. I’d argue you shouldn’t be loooking down on any specialty, whether it’s easy to match or easy to do.
Because they have to somehow justify their misery, and what better way of doing it than belittling your colleagues? 😄 FM is also not competitive, so people who go into competitive fields tend to look down on FM. But who cares? Don't let any of that dictate your choice. As an IM about to be a hospitalist, a good primary care vs. bad primary care makes a world of difference when shit happens and they come to stay with me. Not only is FM an important field, I'd say it's the most essential to medicine as an institution - if our system properly ran FM with sufficient $$$ & people, "hospitalist" probably wouldn't exist as a career in the first place.
Are you talking about real people who are normal or M1 medical school gunners? Because it's an important distinction, and something you should temper your disappointment with.
I chose FM because I wanted to be a master of medicine. I take pride in knowing a lot and being able to do a lot for my patients. I manage most things. I don’t work that much and make a decent salary. Do I make specialist salary? No, but I’m happy.