The non-sexy option

• Friday was my last day of urology. My preceptor gave me some feedback, but what I was most pleased with was a comment he made about family medicine. He said, "I think you'll really enjoy family medicine! You just seem to "get it"." For whatever reason, I was most delighted by his observation of me likely enjoying the option I'm choosing.

• I find that in medicine, Family medicine is the least sexy (well, only slightly sexier than geriatrics) of the specialities. The culture around selecting one of the many subspecialities reminds me of the pressure to do management consulting or investment banking during the MBA. At that time, it was perceived that the best students should do that since they were the only ones being courted by those firms and the jobs were the best paid/most glamourous. However, when you looked at it without the social pressure, those jobs sucked in terms of lifestyle. The environment you work in is ultra-competitive with a much talked about "Up or Out" mentality, i.e. either get promoted or get out. And you had to travel a lot and work incessantly. Not unlike many of the medicine specialities - competitive, gruelling & long training, and bad lifestyle at the end of it all (well, in my own biased perspective anyway).

• All to say that it was nice to hear someone not complaining about family medicine for a change. I've heard all about the unending paperwork, the endless stream of patients, not having enough time for anything, not getting paid enough, and constantly needing to know everything vs a more focused area. Am I convinced those things won't bother me? No. I'm sure some of them, if not all, will. But what I'd like to hear a little more about is the amazing people you meet who teach you so much about life (it's already starting to happen), the wonderful relationships you build over time and the feeling of satisfaction you can get from doing your part in helping someone feel better (even if that just means more quality of life vs quantity of life or in its simplest form, just by listening).

• On to the last two weeks of surgery, focusing on ear, nose and throat. I hope to have a similarly positive experience (and learn a lot, while having lots of early days so I can study for my exams which are breathing down my neck at the end of the month)!