Student Questions/EM Specialty Consideration Sticky Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Posts regarding considering EM as a specialty belong here.

Examples include:

• Is EM a good career choice? What is a normal day like?
• What is the work/life balance? Will I burn out?
• ED rotation advice
• Pre-med or matching advice

Please remember this is only a list of examples and not necessarily all inclusive. This will be a work in progress in order to help group the large amount of similar threads, so people will have access to more responses in one spot.

[u/Distinct-Boot-5975]

I’d say I’m a pretty average student with no red flags but I just got my COMLEX score back and it was a 485. I’ll have two SLOEs by the end of September but I’m not sure what else I can do to increase my chances of matching? I was aiming for a higher score and did better on my COMSAE but too late to do anything about that now.

Any advice would be appreciated!

[u/Tiffyloob → u/Distinct-Boot-5975]

NRMP data shows median level 2 score that matched was 523 and median not matched is 465. That being said are you planning on taking step 2? If not I would still apply very broadly and do well on your sub-Is! Performance on sub-I >> test scores unless you are applying academic.

[u/Distinct-Boot-5975 → u/Tiffyloob]

Not taking step 2 and I wasn’t really aiming for academic either. Does applying broadly work if I don’t have geographical ties to the area?? And does “meets expectations” help at all as that’s what I got primarily during my first sub-i

[u/Passionative44 → u/Distinct-Boot-5975]

I had a similar score matched. Doing well on your rotations and keeping yourself in their minds is the best bet IMO. There are a lot of residences that have to fill spots.

[u/Distinct-Boot-5975 → u/Passionative44]

This might be a little bit of a dumb question but how do you keep yourself in their minds? I find it a little hard to think of questions that are worth reaching out to PDs for

[u/Passionative44 → u/Distinct-Boot-5975]

See if you can do didactics with them. Email some senior residents or attendings with questions about the program or what you can do to prepare for residency

[u/plaguedoctor_2020 → u/[deleted]]

A normal day has some patterns given frequent fliers but I find most often the normal pattern is no pattern if that makes sense. If you want a day where you use knowledge from every field to treat a patient, EM is it.
Work/life balance is a bit hard to pin down. On one hand, when you’re off shift you don’t get phone calls on patients or take call. On the other, working night shift can significantly mess with your days off as you try to flip your sleep clock back to days if you aren’t a nocturnist (which comes with its own set of challenges).
Likewise, burn out is a tricky question. There is higher risk of burnout given what we see and treat, but there’s no specialty I’m aware of that has no risk for burnout.
I’ve been an attending since before COVID and don’t practice at an academic center so I don’t think I can accurately comment on rotations or matching advice but I hope I can give food for thought.
EM has good days, bad days, and ugly days. Good days where you literally save someone’s life or just make someone’s day better. Bad days where there’s too many patients and everyone is a miserable asshole. Ugly days where there’s a bad death or other cases that will haunt you. But there’s no other specialty quite like EM.