A young colleague called me the other day to ask my advice, having recently finished her fellowship and appointed as junior faculty in our department. She is married, has a new baby, and was wondering about the feasibility of her career choice.
For at least the last five years, the field of Urology has been fortunate to be able to choose from the strongest medical students in the country. Urology remains one of the most competitive surgical subspecialties.
It is nearing the end of your second year of Urology residency and you’re feeling like you may finally be getting a handle on things. Just as you begin to exhale, you receive an e-mail from your advisor asking whether you’ve chosen a focus for your research year. At first you may be confused, “Research year? Isn’t that more than a year away?”
Applications and acceptances for urology residencies in the United States are organized and implemented through the American Urologic Association Office of Education through a match system that has worked quite well over the years.
Think back, I bet you can remember the names of teachers who influenced you in high school and college, who excited you to pursue science and then directed you towards medicine as a career.
I believe that the surgeon scientist has been, is, and should remain a vital entity for medicine and thus for both Urology in general and Urological Oncology specifically.
