Is it normal to be perplexed as to why or how a dr chooses his specialty?

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11 Comments

This utterly bewilders me!! Medical specialties, how do they settle on one?? I can't see too many people going to medical school with the dreams of being a butt or foot doctor.

I can see why one may chose something so powerful and awesome like the heart, the brain, delivering babies or treating cancer. I cannot see how one would come to settle on the foot, ENT (ear, nose throat), proctology (butt doctor) or geriatrics.

Are they just filling space and doing it to have job security because there's fewer of them? Are they just filling a need because no one else will do it? Are they not smart enough to be in a more appealing specialty? The bottom of their class, perhaps?

It's a mystery!! is it normal to wonder this??

Voting Results
64% Normal
Based on 39 votes (25 yes)
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Comments ( 11 )
  • GuessWho
    11 years ago

    They're either fascinated by how that body part works or they see an opportunity to make lots of money doing something that not many others can.

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  • hannahj03
    11 years ago

    I'm pretty sure many of them are just assigned their specialty. I work on a campus in the Midwest and they just had a ceremony where it seemed they assigned them what area's they were going into. I was unsure until then as well as to how and why they went into their respective areas.

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  • Captain_Kegstand
    11 years ago

    I had never even wondered this until I read your question. A little food for thought for me!

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  • buttons
    11 years ago

    as a premed student i can say the majority of doctors do not have a fetish, although it may seem that say to an outsider. the body and the biology behind it is a beautiful thing and to understand how it works and functions is of interest to people. a "vagina doctor" may be interested in the beauty of development and reproduction but not sexually.

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  • dappled
    11 years ago

    I work with the professors who train them (who also have specialties and usually much narrower than people who work in the field). Generally there's a Eureka moment where a certain type of behaviour in, say, a cell is just fascinating to someone. I've been here longer than it would take to attain a degree so I've seen all kinds of fascinating things. But I imagine that if I was doing this as a degree, the first thing which really hit me between the eyes would have a chance of becoming my specialty.

    From a personal point of view, mine would have been telomeres (the little caps which protect chromosomes). Lengthen those effectively and you not only start chipping away at many forms of cancer, you start increasing the lifespan of humans too.

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    • wigsplitz
      11 years ago

      Don't you think it would be disastrous to increase our lifespan? I sure do!!

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      • dappled
        11 years ago

        Potentially, yes. It would have to be managed. If we keep increasing the number of people we introduce to this planet and we also make them all live longer, where is the resource to support them all coming from?

        If we can control population, though, then I'd very much like for my loved ones to have the opportunity of living longer.

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  • BlackDays
    11 years ago

    Ya I always wondered what would posess someone to be a proctologist or podiartist. I think I heard that dentists rank high in suicide. I wouldn't want to look in mouths all day. Considering I rarely ever go to any doctors, I can't ask them what day dilly

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  • tori
    11 years ago

    My dermatologist has psoriasis. So he became a skin doc to help others with that problem.
    My regular GP? I don't know. I will have to ask next time. Good question!!

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  • Avant-Garde
    11 years ago

    They're are a certain doctor professions that really make wonder about the person.
    Foot Doctor: does he/she have a foot fetish?
    Penis/vaginal doctor: is he or she a pervert?!

    On other things, sometimes they're forced into studying it by their families or for other reasons.

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    • plum6
      11 years ago

      the being forced thing probably helps but like you said becoming a fucking urogolgist or smth similar is still a bit weird in my opinion. Naturally I am happy that people still choose such professions but the reasoning behind it is a mystery to me.

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