The other day I decided to go ahead and choose a specialty.  I narrowed it down to orthopedic surgery and cardiology.  Not only do these two areas seem so different, they are the extremes in terms of residency programs.  Orthopedic surgey is typically reserved for medical students that score in the 99th percentile on Step 1 of the Boards.  On the other hand, cardiology begins with internal medicine which is one of the least competitive programs.  Others take me as the equivalent of an undecided freshman in undergraduate school when I tell them these two areas.  It's hard for some to see a connection.  The connection comes in that I am an engineer and problems that occur in cardiology and orthopedics are engineering problems.  This is not true for dermatology, opthamology, emergency medicine, or pathology.

In any case, those plans are again up in the air after my two meetings today.  

12:15 pm. My first meeting was with a administrator from the Drew program who was checking in on how students were doing in medical school.  Surprisingly, she gave me high praised and practically called me a genius among medical students.  Her only concern was that I might become lazy.  She said I could become lazy and still pass medical school, but would hate to see that happen.  She then went on to praise my critical thinking and noted that I would be a great researcher that could change the way research is done.  I tell her thanks and walk out.

1:30 pm. I go meet with my PBL (Problem Based Learning) instructor to discuss my performance so far in PBL.  I express that my weakness in class comes from my lack of in-depth knowledge of techniques we encounter in journal articles.  I fully understood the mechanism of the techniques but knew not their shortcomings and how to criticize them.  This is especially true when researchers have designed a completely new experimental method.  He responded by saying that this was because of my wanting to learn everything in great detail, which was not needed for our class.  He then went on to say that I had immense potential as a researcher.  He commented that he knew not my career goals but that I would be a great researcher.  He then opened his office for whenever I might want to talk about my future goals.

Needless to say, I was not expecting so much praise today.  In addition, the research cloud has again been thrust upon me.  I am the student who did research for two and half years as an undergraduate.  I am the student who turned down Boston University which has the oldest MD/PhD program in the United States.  My graduate work would have been in Biomedical Engineering where Boston University is ranked in the top 3 or so.  Boston has the highest concentration of intellectuals in America as well as the highest concentration of biotech firms in the world.  After I thoughtfully turned down Boston University, I only had slight feelings that I might regret not doing a PhD.  I admit that I think like a researcher.  Not all medical students, even those that do research, think like a researcher.  Months earlier, I did dispel the notion that just because I was good at doing research that I had to do research.  After today, it seems like others seem to think not just that I could do research, but that I belong in research.  Considering that the option of doing a PhD here at UCLA is just a matter of if I decide to or not, I now have to again deal with the research issue.