Med School Update: Elective

If you know my husband, you know that he loves sports. He loves to play sports, most especially, but watching sports is a frequent past-time of his as well. From the very beginning of medical school, before we had even arrived really, Scott would say that he imagined himself going into sports medicine as a specialty. He didn't even know what that would entail. He just liked the idea of working with athletes, and if it meant he could watch a game on the sidelines as team physician, that didn't hurt either!

As Scott began his rotations this year, he began to have a better idea of how he wanted to practice, no matter what specialty he eventually chose to pursue as a career. He's discovered that he prefers to work in outpatient clinic settings, as opposed to large hospitals. He would like to incorporate osteopathic manual manipulation (OMM) into his daily practice, because he likes working with musculoskeletal problems and giving patients some immediate pain relief in a natural way. He continues to think that sports medicine is the way to have a practice with these aspects, but is open to other possibilities including Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM&R).

 

This last rotation was Scott's elective, which he set up with a former Western University graduate who now works in Portland as a sports medicine/family physician. This doctor happens to be the team physician for a hockey team in Portland, and he works in an office where other physicians have team physician responsibilities in the area. This doctor, also happens to have Tuesdays off on his schedule. So Scott didn't have to go into the clinic on Tuesday's. This inspired Scott to tell me that when he grows up, he'd like to take Wednesday's off. "Then I could work two days, and take a break. Work two days, and take a break."

 

It was clear, pretty early on, that this rotation was different for Scott. It may have been the first or second day when we had this exciting text conversation:

Scott: [This doctor] does a lot of OMM.
Me: That's cool! You should ask him if he has an problems reimbursing for OMM.
Scott: Nope
Scott: And he listens to ESPN radio during the day.
Me: Wow! I'm surprised you haven't already declared this your dream job!
Scott: It's never good to declare.
Scott: I'll be going to a hockey game with him too.
Me: You're so special!
Scott: Thanks hon!

The picture above is when Scott attended the hockey game with his preceptor. Scott hasn't "declared" his future career in words, but in my mind it's close enough.