A little background...
Its 7pm. I pick up the phone. I dial the number. The phone rings once, I panick and hang up.
I stare at my phone. Can I do this?
I'm lost in one of those infinite moments, where you think a lifetime of thoughts and scenarios in the span of seconds. What will I say? How will they react?
My phone rings, the harsh tones startling me out of my revelry. They are calling back...
I'm about to do the hardest thing I have every done.
I am about to tell my parents I want to be a urologist...
Ok sorry for the overdramatization, it really wasn't that suspenseful. But is sure as hell felt like it. My parents are traditional more blue collar people. We are first generation immigrants, no-one in my family is a doctor. So for my parents it was a big deal when I got into med school, and they were super excited to tell our family and friends that their son was a cardiologist, an emergency room doctor, etc.
So when I finally built up the nerve and told them, they weren't exactly thrilled. They didn't fully understand what it meant to be a urologist. Their impression was that urologists were essentially gynecologists for males.
But really, urology is an amazing field. First and foremost - urology is a surgical subspecialty. You have to love surgery. And I love being in the OR. As I detailed in a previous post, for me nothing beats being in the operating room. Urology affords me that opportunity.
But additionally, their are some specific things I love about urology.
Anatomy
I like the anatomy. I like the abdomen and pelvis, I like working the abdomen. I like being the master of all things urological (kidney/bladder/ureter/scrotum). We do our own ultrasounds, we read our own CT's, we do our own retrogrades in the OR. We are better at radiology in that sense.
Ownership
What do I mean by this? I think an example is best. A colorectal surgeon will get referred all his cases. GI treats the inflammatory bowel patients, when they fail medical management send them to the surgeon, he chops it out and sends them back to GI. Same thing with cancer.
But urology, we own our patients in a unique way. Sure we have the cancer referrals that we operate on and then lose. But we also have a huge population of patients that we manage. We are men's health doctors. We do annual exams, treat men for their ED, follow patients BPH (big prostate) voiding issues. Right now when I'm in clinic with my attendings, almost on a daily basis we take care of patients that he has been seeing for 10+ years. He's operated on them, managed them medically, and really know them. I like that about urology, we build very long relationships with our patients.
Master of our domain
We are masters of our domain (does anyone know that reference from Seinfeld??)
We medically AND surgically manage diseases of urological organs. We take care of BPH, recurrent UTI's, and stones, along with multiple others. I like being the guy that does that. I like to go to a patient and say well you have a stone, we can try medical or surgical management, but either way I'll be taking care of you. This ties in with anatomy and ownership, we really do take care of our patients from start to finish.
Hours:
I can honestly tell you that everyone for everyone who goes into urology, this is a factor. Urology is a surgical subspecialty, but we have far better hours than our general surgery brethren. Theirs are significantly fewer urological emergencies. Plus urology is alot less baby sitting, and we don't take care of the painful trauma bombs. Sure emergencies can be fun and exciting, but in thirty years will I still want to be doing that? Its kind of nice to have fewer emergencies, have a better schedule and more control over your life. Also our residency, while still grueling, is nowhere near as bad as our general surgery colleagues have it.
Diversity
I love this about urology. We do big open abdominal surgeries. We do a ton of laparoscopic surgery. We use the robot more than any other specialty, and have a good reason for using it. Our bread and butter is endoscopic surgery. Our pediatric surgeons are essentially plastic surgeons. The variety is huge.
People:
Urologists have a unique personality. First and foremost urology is a surgical subspecialty, so it attracts driven, intelligent, hard working type A personalities. At the same time though, almost paradoxically, we are some of the laid back, relaxed and funny people in the hospital. Jokes fly all the time in the OR, and in general we all have fun and don't take ourselves to seriously.
Theirs a reason that urology is so competitive these days, and I think the above outlines it. Its a fantastic field, full of people who love their job. When you love your job, you work harder to be better at it, and it just furthers the field.
AsConfucius said “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
So when I finally built up the nerve and told them, they weren't exactly thrilled. They didn't fully understand what it meant to be a urologist. Their impression was that urologists were essentially gynecologists for males.
But really, urology is an amazing field. First and foremost - urology is a surgical subspecialty. You have to love surgery. And I love being in the OR. As I detailed in a previous post, for me nothing beats being in the operating room. Urology affords me that opportunity.
But additionally, their are some specific things I love about urology.
Anatomy
I like the anatomy. I like the abdomen and pelvis, I like working the abdomen. I like being the master of all things urological (kidney/bladder/ureter/scrotum). We do our own ultrasounds, we read our own CT's, we do our own retrogrades in the OR. We are better at radiology in that sense.
Ownership
What do I mean by this? I think an example is best. A colorectal surgeon will get referred all his cases. GI treats the inflammatory bowel patients, when they fail medical management send them to the surgeon, he chops it out and sends them back to GI. Same thing with cancer.
But urology, we own our patients in a unique way. Sure we have the cancer referrals that we operate on and then lose. But we also have a huge population of patients that we manage. We are men's health doctors. We do annual exams, treat men for their ED, follow patients BPH (big prostate) voiding issues. Right now when I'm in clinic with my attendings, almost on a daily basis we take care of patients that he has been seeing for 10+ years. He's operated on them, managed them medically, and really know them. I like that about urology, we build very long relationships with our patients.
Master of our domain
We are masters of our domain (does anyone know that reference from Seinfeld??)
We medically AND surgically manage diseases of urological organs. We take care of BPH, recurrent UTI's, and stones, along with multiple others. I like being the guy that does that. I like to go to a patient and say well you have a stone, we can try medical or surgical management, but either way I'll be taking care of you. This ties in with anatomy and ownership, we really do take care of our patients from start to finish.
Hours:
I can honestly tell you that everyone for everyone who goes into urology, this is a factor. Urology is a surgical subspecialty, but we have far better hours than our general surgery brethren. Theirs are significantly fewer urological emergencies. Plus urology is alot less baby sitting, and we don't take care of the painful trauma bombs. Sure emergencies can be fun and exciting, but in thirty years will I still want to be doing that? Its kind of nice to have fewer emergencies, have a better schedule and more control over your life. Also our residency, while still grueling, is nowhere near as bad as our general surgery colleagues have it.
Diversity
I love this about urology. We do big open abdominal surgeries. We do a ton of laparoscopic surgery. We use the robot more than any other specialty, and have a good reason for using it. Our bread and butter is endoscopic surgery. Our pediatric surgeons are essentially plastic surgeons. The variety is huge.
People:
Urologists have a unique personality. First and foremost urology is a surgical subspecialty, so it attracts driven, intelligent, hard working type A personalities. At the same time though, almost paradoxically, we are some of the laid back, relaxed and funny people in the hospital. Jokes fly all the time in the OR, and in general we all have fun and don't take ourselves to seriously.
Theirs a reason that urology is so competitive these days, and I think the above outlines it. Its a fantastic field, full of people who love their job. When you love your job, you work harder to be better at it, and it just furthers the field.
AsConfucius said “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”
