a little confused!

bluedevilmike
Wed, 07 Feb 2007 18:10:53 +0000

Hi Lizzie,

Your residency is the beginning of the specialization process. You submit your choices for a residency in February of your fourth year of medical school. You are placed into one of those programs in mid-March. That’s when you START to specialize. You may continue to subspecialize further.

You experience many aspects of most specialties during your third and fourth years of medical school, as those are more like apprenticeships than they are like classwork.

The last year of “school” where you attend class is your second year of medical school. The last year of school where you pay tuition is your fourth year of medical school. The last year of school where you are no longer primarily in a learning responsibility is highly variable, but you will be referred to as a “practicing” physician or an “attending” physician after that time.

For example, if you wanted to be a pediatric surgeon, you would do a residency for five years in surgery and then a fellowship – two years? – in pediatric surgery. You could continue to do fellowships – i.e. pediatric neurosurgery – almost indefinitely, should you choose to do so.