June 29, 2015

Branden’s Specialty Choice

eastern virginia medical school class of 2016When I find that I’m getting asked a particular question numerous times, that usually means it’s time for a blog post! For those of you that don’t know, my husband, Branden, is currently attending medical school at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS). Whenever this comes up in conversation, the next question is always ‘So what kind of doctor are you going to be?’ For a while, we never had an answer, because he hadn’t made a decision. And then when we did have an answer, he would change his mind a few weeks later. Oops! But now that he has completed his 3rd year of medical and has done clinical rotations in all the different medical fields, we finally have a definitive answer! Branden has chosen to become a… OB/GYN! Shocked?! We are too! We never thought in a million years that this would be his choice. So let me back up and tell you how he came to this decision.

Back in college when Branden decided he wanted to go to medical school, he wanted to become an anesthesiologist. (Thank you spell check! :-p ) He was pursuing a biology degree and found that he really excelled in chemistry. So doing something medical that involved drugs and chemistry appealed to him. So over the next few years he shadowed a few anesthesiologists and found that he didn’t like the field as much as he thought he would. He still knew he wanted to be a doctor of some sort, so he just ended up starting medical school with more of a blank slate as to what field he would choose. During the first two years of medical school we played around with the idea of different specialties, but never focused on anything too seriously since he didn’t need to make his decision until after 3rd year (where we are now!). The time to really figure out what you want to do is during 3rd year since that is when you are actually doing clinical rotations in each of the different fields. His first rotation was pediatrics, which he really liked. Whenever we ask someone what they think he should be, they say pediatrician because of his fun personality and his bow ties, of course! So while he really enjoyed his pediatric rotation, he wasn’t totally sold. Then he did family medicine, then internal medicine. Still not sold on those either. Somewhere along the way he became really interested in Radiology. Not sure what sparked that, but there was a good stretch of time where that was what he really wanted to do. But after realizing that radiologists have little-to-no patient interaction, he started to veer away from it since his patient interaction skills were one of his best assets. Then he did his psychiatry rotation and really became fascinated with mental health. After thinking about all the different factors, he decided that he wanted to settle on making psychiatry his choice. We were really happy to have landed on a decision, but I wouldn’t say we were overjoyed with the decision. It was more like psychiatry was the best fit, but maybe not the perfect fit. So we moved forward with the intention of psychiatry being his field of choice.

At this point he only had two rotations left for his 3rd year- Ob/Gyn and Surgery. He was pretty certain that he wasn’t interested in surgery and we had honestly never even considered Ob/Gyn as an option. So he started his Ob/Gyn rotation and simply fell in love. We definitely weren’t expecting that! It seemed like it had everything he was looking for! Working with pregnant women was one of the aspects he really enjoyed. The way he described it was that pregnancy is the only condition that people are happy to have. Usually when you go to the doctor, it’s because you are sick or something is wrong. But pregnancy is a condition that you are happy to go to the doctor for! So treating women throughout that process is really rewarding! Being on Ob/Gyn also has a lot of variety to it as you are somewhat of a primary care doctor through regular gynecology visits and you also get to do procedures and surgeries. It really has a little bit of everything! So he went ahead and decided to make a somewhat last minute switch from psychiatry to Ob/Gyn. I’m really happy that we landed on this decision because I can really see how excited and passionate he is about this field. And I think he will make a really great Ob/Gyn! Now, to all the women out there that want to ask me that obvious question- yes, it is a little weird that my husband is going to be a Gynecologist. haha! But at this point we’re both pretty unphased by it. Plus, how awesome will it be to have an in-house Obstetrician when I’m pregnant?! haha!

So what’s next on his journey? Now that he is done with 3rd year, he has to take part 2 (Step 2) of his board exam this July. So he’ll be spending all his time between now and then studying for that. After he takes the test, he will start 4th year, which is basically like 3rd year as he will be doing clinical rotations. But they are considered electives because they are more specialized and he got to choose them. And while all this is going on, he will also be applying for residency. This is similar to applying to any type of grad school where you have to get recommendations, write a personal statement, do interviews and all that jazz. Then on Match Day, March 18th, he will find out what residency he ‘matched’ into. The way the residency match works is that after you do all your interviews, you will rank the schools according to your preference and then they will rank you back, then it goes into an algorithm and spits out where everyone is ‘matched’. So every medical student in the country will find out what program they are going to on the exact same day- Match Day! As of right now, we are hoping to match into the program at EVMS. Residency will then last for 4 years. If he decided to specialize in something like fertility or oncology, that would be a few more years after residency. And THEN he would be done! Phew! Seems like it’s still so far away, but I know it’ll all be worth it in the end! Or so people say! haha!

So there’s my long-winded answer to what kind of doctor Branden will be! It’s been quite a journey to get to this point and we still have a long way to go! Thank you all for coming along on this journey with us! You support and encouragement means the world to us!!
eastern virginia medical school class of 2016
Of course we couldn’t do our little photoshoot without Henry!eastern virginia medical school class of 2016
And of course we had to have one not-so-serious shot! Can you see why people thought he would be a good pediatrician? eastern virginia medical school class of 2016

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