What are the most important things to consider while choosing your medical specialty?
How to choose your medical specialty?
What is the suitable specialty for your personality?

Here we are going to answer these questions with these tips:

1. Research your options carefully and use all sources of career advice available. Consult attendings, residents or postgraduate colleagues for advice.
2. Use the process of elimination, start with a long list and keep eliminating.
3. Make a list of pros and cons of all specialties from your point of view.
4. Start with the classic question, am I a physician or surgeon?
5. Consider your scientific and clinical interest.
6. Read about the various specialties and what different specialists do.
7. Take online assessments to help you narrow down your options.
8. Think about how much time you want to spend with your patients.
9. Consider options that will suit your lifestyle.
10. Be honest with yourself. Assess your current skills and the easiest skills for you to learn.
11. Check the on-call commitment for different specialties.
12. Take time to consider your strength and weakness.
13. Choose the specialty with high demand and low supply.
14. Don’t forget to think about your future and how the specialty will change over time.
15. Check average salaries for different specialties.
16. Make sure the specialty you choose has the doctor-patient relationship that you prefer.
17. Check residency training requirements.
18. Ask about the duration of the training program of each specialty.
19. Don’t ignore your motivations and passions.
20. Check working hours of each specialty.
21. Ask yourself “Where do I want to practice?” if the answer is critical for you so it must be considered while choosing the specialty.
22. Talk to your family and friends, they may see something in your personality that you can’t see.
23. Consider the balance you want between home and work life.
24. Ask yourself, what your preferences are regarding work environment.
25. Gain clinical experience in the specialty you choose before making a final decision, for example schedule an elective rotation in your preferred specialty.
26. Increase your competitiveness as this is an important factor to get the specialty you want.
27. Think about what originally made you want to become a doctor.
28. Choose a specialty that will allow you to pursue your non-medical interests, like research, teaching or policy work.
29. Consider patient contact and continuity you prefer, for example internal medicine means long-term patient relationships while pathology has basically no patient contact.
30. Make a backup plan.

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