Here I am, almost done with my first year of medical school and just about as clueless as ever about what to specialise in, hah. What I don't regret though, is having thought a lot about what kind of medicine to go into before medical school started, because once you start, you get so wrapped up in study/survival mode you're just like "I'd like a breather, please!" and then when you go on break the last thing you want to think about is medicine/the future, haha.
One book that was pretty okay was "Choosing a Medical Specialty" which is cool because it has sections on different residencies written by actual residents in that field. What's even better though, is asking upperclassmen what they've done to get ready for the residency they're going into, or even websites/blogs run by your school for a specific residency (sometimes you'll find a Word document/PDF/Powerpoint written by an upperclassman giving you all the advice you need!). And that's far better because it's more up to date (not to mention free) and the person who put that information together isn't too far along from you (more useful than asking a doctor who finished residency 35 years ago with so much change since then).
I'll write more when I have the time, but here are some good things to do:
1. Shadow early before medical school (I think it really helps you decide on a specialty, or at least rule some out, and getting a strong LOR from a doctor is a great boost). It'll also help for the interview (I'll write a big in-depth entry during summer!)
2. Shadow during medical school (pre-clinical year(s)). So far I've shadowed on surgery service and it was really busy, but I saw some amazing procedures and kind of stood there slack-jawed behind my surgical mask.
3. Don't spend money on old out of date residency books, ask upperclassmen and look for PDFs/Powerpoints
4. Join groups associated to different medical specialties early on! I joined a surgery group late and kind of regret not joining different groups (like pediatrics, oncology, ENT, internal medicine) because either I was too busy for felt (Well, I'll never go into that). So if you're gung-ho orthopaedics/integrated plastics & derm like everyone in medical school, you should still keep an open mind!
5. Find a mentor! More on that later (and I'm actually working on this) but there are plenty of docs out there looking to guide med students and be great teachers!
6. Ask plenty of doctors about their specialties, like the pros and cons, but don't get too personal of course. Maybe ask something like "What advice do you have for someone interested in X?"
7. Keep an eye out for physician job satisfaction surveys. Interestingly, according to a Medscape report (a 2010 or 2011 report on income and job satisfaction), orthopods were the highest paid and not very satisfied with their job (go figure, ortho is hard and demanding, with tons of liability and high overhead), primary care showed pretty low job satisfaction, and onocology, rads, cards, and derm showed very high job satisfaction, with ER docs somewhere in the middle, and pulmonology sorta going towards the lower end.
8. Start exploring early in med school! Time passes by so fast and you might think "Oh I have 3 years to decide," but really, after your first year it gets a little late because there are so many things you need to be aware about besides Step 1 score, like community involvement, ECs, leadership positions, research publications, what kind of rotations to schedule and when, and so on.
9. Keep an open mind! Not only will you become more well-rounded and be able to interact with people in other specialties better, this will keep you from becoming in the tunnel-vision kid who ends up achieving a great residency but doesn't love it. You never know, you might fall in love with a paediatric specialty after wanting to do neurosurgery for two years! (I think there's also a statistic in that Medscape article about how 20-30% of docs would want to change specialties).
Good luck! And good luck on your interviews, potential-first-years!
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