Life Plan

You know the classic “globe” method of choosing a vacations spot? Close your eyes, spin a globe, and whereever your finger lands is where you’re spending a week of your life. Albeit, this method has its flaws (because you know you go for the re-spin if your finger lands in the Mariana Trench or Katmandu), but I have decided to adopt it for my own purposes.

As an M2, I have no clue what I want to do with my medical career, besides get out of the library. My experience is limited to a couple of botched histories, listening to a few hearts/lungs pretending to know what I’m hearing, and one successful venipuncture. None of these things lend themselves as a clear Road Sign of Life pointing me toward a certain speciality. This is where the globe method enters.

First, I’ve decided I would like to go somewhere fun for residency. Although I might not necessarily have time to enjoy the city, I would like to be somewhere that my friends would feel motivated to come stay with me so that they can enjoy the city. So far, I’m looking into:

Charleston, South Carolina
Chicago, Illinois
Charlotte, North Carolina
Denver, Colorado
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Once I settle on a city, I then will need to choose a specialty. Seeing as I would like to go to at least a decent program, this means that the field I go into will be limited by what is respectable in the city I choose. But, I’m not going to just pick a career because it has the best program. I want to have a specialty that has perks, such as prestige, monetary compensation, and the most important, good personalized license plate options. Here are some examples:

Orthopedics- BONESAW
Plastic Surgery- NEWU MD
Otolaryngology- SAY AHH
Obstetrics/Gynocology- VAG DOC
Radiology- ICTHRUU

With both of these criteria met (fun city, cool tag), I feel like I will have found my chosen path in life. I mean, how can this plan go wrong?