A cardiologist answers YOUR questions: MUA mentor interviews Dr. Rich Berning

Hello Everyone,

I have met many of you already, either through the MUA mentor program, my website, or on campus.

If you don’t already know me, my name is Ray, and I’m currently a MED 3 student at MUA. For those that do know me, know that I’m adamant about encouraging students, usually through my website, email, or in person, to conduct thorough research about what you want to do, where you want to go, and how you plan to do it – or simply, DESIGNING YOUR PROFESSION.

For example, how much money do you want to make as a doctor?

In what way, shape, or form do you specifically plan to help people?

Do you want to open your own private practice, work in a hospital, or run an online practice, an idea pioneered by Dr. Jay Parkinson?

How many hours do you wish to practice per week?

What top 3 medical specialties will you be most happy practicing for the next 40 years of your life?

Perhaps you are content with Family Practice?

I hope you have answers to some of these. It takes time and deliberation to narrow your options down – at least it did for me.

If you haven’t put much thought into this yet, as starters, please consider completing this “Medical Specialty Aptitude Test“. I love sharing this resource because it’s fun, fast, and relevant for you now. When you have completed this, I would love to share, compare, and discuss the results with you via email, or publicly in the comments of this post.

Unfortunately, this resource does not factor in some important decision making factors such as lifestyle consideration (e.g. the shift work nature of emergency doctors allow them to leave their work in the ER, go home after a hard days work, and put their feet up), median salary, natural talent (e.g. surgeons should be able to think fast and possess admirable decision making skills), residency training duration (e.g. who wants to do an additional 4 years of residency followed by 2 years of fellowship, when you are trying to raise a family?), doctor-patient relationships, employment data (e.g. surgeons on average work 60 hour weeks), and match statistics (competition for a specialty can be estimated by the following set of statistics: 900 independent applicants vied for prospective surgical programs resulting in 79.7% success rate for US applicants and 12.6% for the foreign trained physician. The unmatch rate was low at 5.4%).

One of the most popular questions that I often hear is: What are you going to specialize in? Is it difficult for an international medical graduate (IMG) to land a competitive specialty? What kind of scores and grades do I need in terms of USMLE Step I, basic sciences, and clinical rotations? Is there a specific list of electives that I need to choose in order to land a specialty?

I guess that isn’t just one question. However, they all fall under a common theme: Medical specialties and sub-specialties.

To be honest, I don’t have all of the answers. Like many of you, I have a long list of things ‘to-be-researched’.

I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg on this list. For example, did you know there is such a thing as Undersea Medicine? This is some serious food for thought if you are a diver, enjoy physiology, and seek adventure (which is self selecting among Caribbean medical students). Divers can check out the history behind this field of medicine here.

It wasn’t until after mentoring new students that I quickly discovered I had only a smidgen of answers, enough to make me look smart; but deep down feel like a fool.

This quickly led me down a path to seek more answers. I figured the best place for answers was through a 1-on-1, mono-et-mono interview with professionals in the field. What better experience than to speak directly to those specialists who are in the line of fire, cashing in those paychecks, buying those Mercedes, inserting those stents, building up a patient base, and fighting off lawsuits?

In the remainder of my time here at MUA, I will be contacting as many specialists (and generalists) as time will permit, to request and conduct interviews. Being the proud MUA student that I am, I will be conducting the interviews as myself: a pressure cooked, over-zealous, overworked IMG from a little known medical school in the Caribbean.

I am lucky to have already received my first “Yes, I’d be happy to do a recorded interview with you” from a specialist in a field that I have been dieing to learn more about, CARDIOLOGY (no pun intended)!

On Wednesday, September 30th, 2009 at 8PM EST, I will be conducting my first recorded interview with pediatric cardiologist, Dr. Rich Berning from Hartford, Connecticut.

The interview will be recorded with informed consent, and made available for MUA Student Download Only (and faculty)!

I have but one concern… the lack of good questions to ask! For this reason, I will be providing some incentive to those students who help come up with questions between now and then.

If you drop a comment or question in this blog post, join the “Choosing Your Medical Specialty” newsletter (to the right of this blog post), or email me a question directly, not only will I ask your question, but I will personally email you a copy of my research pertaining to Cardiology. This is a PDF document that took me several weeks to research and write, chalked full of up-to-date match statistics for foreign medical graduates (aka. IMG or FMG), median salary, residency experience, competition, employment data, lifestyle considerations, and answers to the ultimate question “Why become a cardiologist?”

Please note that the newsletter includes fun stuff like type written transcripts of the interviews, opportunities to participate and network in live & recorded calls with physicians, quick n’ dirty reference material, and discussions (or my personal opinion) about creative and innovative things like Dr. Parkinson’s online medical practice, the infamous goo index, and my very favorite flow chart first published in the BMJ by then-resident Boris Veysman:

Thanks,

To your professional success!

Ray Ng
MUA MED 3

P.S. Post your suggestions for show topics and questions for pediatric cardiologist Dr. Berning in the comments here. You can also join the “Choosing Your Medical Specialty” newsletter off to the right, or email me directly!