Cardiology Too Specialized For New Grad?

[seekingtruths]

Hello All!
I'm a soon-to-be new grad who loves cardiology and just interviewed with a cardiology group. Wil I get decent exposure to other areas of medicine as a cardiology PA or is it is a too "narrow" of a specialty for a new grad in your opinion? Certainly cards patients are very medically complex with multiple comorbidities usually and the position I'm considering is 50/50 inpatient outpatient. Drs are very invested in teaching their APPs and seems like a nurturing group with lots of potential to grow.

 

I am really interested in cardiology but want to be a well rounded PA and not shoot myself in the foot and have a hard time transitioning to FP/IM or another specialty down the road if I decide to move on. I am truly interested in all areas of medicine at this point and found my FP/IM rotations fulfilling. 

 

What are your thoughts?

Thanks for your time.

[rev ronin]

Cardiology is an important field, with a good job outlook, reasonable scope of practice, and good pay.  If you love it, and don't care if you see a lot of kids or do a pap ever or have to guess what a rash might be... it's a fine specialty.  If you love it, go for it.  Moving from Cards to another IM-family job shouldn't be that hard in the future.

[seekingtruths]

Thanks, Rev!! I always appreciate your insight. I'm excited about this group, hopefully an offer will be forthcoming... 

 

Cardiology is an important field, with a good job outlook, reasonable scope of practice, and good pay.  If you love it, and don't care if you see a lot of kids or do a pap ever or have to guess what a rash might be... it's a fine specialty.  If you love it, go for it.  Moving from Cards to another IM-family job shouldn't be that hard in the future.

[Guest ERCat]

I do generally think it's ideal for new grads to start out as generalists (IM, EM, UC) I think if there's one specialty that would be the easiest to move from, it would be cardiology. If you love it I say go for it. You could always pick up per diem work in an urgent care or ER to stay a "generalist." I think that would be the best of both worlds.

[tenjjetnis]

Any thoughts on pulmonary medicine as a first job?

 

I am in a similar boat as OP, where I am also a recent grad with an interest in pulmonary, however worried about not having the ability to move back to more generalist positions such as FM and hospitalist medicine.

 

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

[lancer_dancer01]

Pulmonary is a great first job, of course I am biased as that is what I did and am currently in. Make sure you have a great SP who is willing to teach as there is quite a steep learning curve (this goes with any job as a new grad). I was a respiratory therapist before a PA so I at least had some experience which did make it a little easier. If you will be doing inpatient rounds you shouldn't have too much of a problem transitioning to hospitalist medicine in the future, especially if you get to do any critical care. As mentioned above pick up some prn urgent care jobs to keep some of the generalist skills up to date. There is quite a bit of crossover between cardiology and pulmonary so you will definitely be exposed to a bit of that as well. 

[Poetsiren]

I have a classmate who started in Vascular surgery as a new grad due to not alot of options for jobs in her area when we finished school.... I was surprised at her decision to do it, but she actually really likes it! Sorry, but I can't tell you much more than that.

[PAtoB]

On the flip side, what are people's thoughts about a new grad starting in ortho and then getting into cardio 2-3 years down the road? Harder to do, or nonstarter, no difference than many other specialties?

[cbrsmurf]

There's almost no relation between ortho and cards.  

 

Ortho pretty much just wants the heart to beat so they can get Ancef into the bones.

[GetMeOuttaThisMess]

On the flip side, what are people's thoughts about a new grad starting in ortho and then getting into cardio 2-3 years down the road? Harder to do, or nonstarter, no difference than many other specialties?

I did this exactly in early 80's. Spine to cardiology. First card PA in Dallas to my knowledge. Spent time doing H&P's, rounds for two docs, consults, and the ugh, 3-4 mos stay with most of time in ICU D/C summaries. Later added more docs/PA's, including some new specialty called electrophysiology. There were even rumors that cardiologists were going to start putting these cages in vessels during PTCA's! Minimal office exposure aside from babysitting ETT's when neither doc was available.