a surprise maybe-not-so-surprising announcement

There are some people who come into medical school set on an idea (most typically it's a jock-looking guy interested in orthopedic surgery) and are shocked when they love pediatrics and completely change their career path. There's actually a statistic that 75% of medical students end up going into a different specialty than what they planned when starting medical school.

Then there are others, like me, who insist they are open minded. I insisted on my awareness of this statistic and how I would change my mind anyway, so I didn't even want to tell people my favorite specialty. But while I remained purposefully vague, the people around me seemed all too certain. When I look back, I think about my weird obsession as a preteen with watching "The Baby Story" on TLC (which literally just consists of interviewing couples and then watching the birth in a 30 minute episode). I think about how of all my high school science classes, AP Biology and Anatomy were my favorites. I think about how I took Women and Gender studies classes in college just because I was interested - when they didn't count towards either of my two majors. I think about how my college roommates and I would have too many discussions about how "it's your uterus and not your vagina shedding during a period" or how does surrogacy really work? I think about how first year of med school I got really mad when a professor said that sperm penetrate the egg - which, by the way, is a lie which you can read about in this fascinating article - and then a med school friend said "if you don't become an OB/GYN I will eat my shoe."

Then came third year when everything I loved pointed to the same thing. On surgery, I liked the breast cancer patients the best. I loved being in the OR and doing surgery much more than I expected, and one of the things people forget about OB/GYNs is that they don't just look at vaginas and deliver babies, they also perform various surgeries.  On radiology, I liked ultrasound the best.

So I went into my OB/GYN rotation hopeful that I would just have this feeling. That everything about it would be perfect. Truthfully, not everything about it is perfect. I am not ignorant of the negatives. I'm not terribly thrilled about going into a specialty that has 90% female residents. I have already experienced how terrible it is when a baby is born and can't breathe on its own. But there is a lot of happy to counter the sad. And dealing with the tragic parts of life is a burden anyone going into medicine is choosing to carry.

But there were two things about OB/GYN that made me sure it was the right fit - 1) I just liked the people better. When I look back at my blog post about surgery, that was a major thing that made me feel unsure about choosing it as a career - I just didn't like the people. I didn't think "I want to be the kind of doctor you are" - but on OB/GYN, I thought this so many times. Not only did I want the attendings to be my friends, I also wanted to be as good with patients and as interested in what I do as they are. 2) I loved delivering babies. I know this is cheesy, and there are certain things that all medical students love to do - and delivering babies is definitely one of them. But delivering babies made me emotional in this deep and wonderful sense. And even though I said there were only two reasons, if you reference above, clearly 3) is destiny. Ha I love how freaking cheesy that is.

I am going into Obstetrics and Gynecology! (surprise!)

Chosen for its complete creepiness

I am so excited. Not just because I love the relief of finally having decided and getting to focus on the next steps, but because I feel like I've found something that really fits me. The first time I delivered a baby, afterwards the attending said "I've never had to help a medical student so little! You just knew what to do!"

I am also so happy to be choosing a specialty that is so varied in what I can do with my life - I can be a generalist and do surgery, see people in the office, and deliver babies; I can be a cancer surgeon and operate and follow women during chemotherapy; I can specialize in endocrine and infertility and work on medical problems as well as do procedures to help people get pregnant; or I could specialize in high risk OB and deal with sick pregnant women and the interesting and intense complications surrounding high risk pregnancy. So many choices! I can't imagine I will ever be bored for too long. I get to combine surgery and procedures with primary care and advocacy.

I am really excited and I just want to thank my family and friends for supporting me along the way! Can't wait to see what adventures the future holds.