Did I spell that right? 
While waiting for classes to start back up, I can’t help my mind wandering. This is a specialty I’m interested in, but am keeping in mind the fact that I haven’t rotated through any of the specialties.
I’m having trouble finding what the residency consists of. I know many ENT’s also perform plastic surgery.
I have seen it is a five year long residency. What I’d like to know is (and please use baby talk since I’m only premed ):
-Do you complete a general practice rotation, then specialize?
-Is there a seperate residency for plastic surgery?
-Do insurance companies view ENT’s as specialists, therefore you deal in referals mostly?
-Do you generally see a variety of illnesses or does it get fairly repetitive after a while?
-How competitive is the residency and field?
Thanks in advance!
Quote:
Did I spell that right?
While waiting for classes to start back up, I can’t help my mind wandering. This is a specialty I’m interested in, but am keeping in mind the fact that I haven’t rotated through any of the specialties.
I’m having trouble finding what the residency consists of. I know many ENT’s also perform plastic surgery.
I have seen it is a five year long residency. What I’d like to know is (and please use baby talk since I’m only premed
-Do you complete a general practice rotation, then specialize?
-Is there a seperate residency for plastic surgery?
-Do insurance companies view ENT’s as specialists, therefore you deal in referals mostly?
-Do you generally see a variety of illnesses or does it get fairly repetitive after a while?
-How competitive is the residency and field?
Thanks in advance!
Here’s a link to Mayo Clinic’s residency in ENT that you might find useful: http://www.mayo.edu/msgme/otorhino-rch-curriculum.html .
As I understand it, otorhinolaryngology is one of the toughest residencies to get into.
Larry
ENT is a fascinating field to me as well (especially since I have a lot of training in head/neck anatomy, speech/language stuff, and hearing stuff).
From my experience in visiting ENTs (a la thyroid cancer) and dealing with them professionaly (a la referrals from speech therapy), they can have a pretty diverse clientele from day to day. They can deal with hearing issues (tubes to CN VIII lesions and tumors to processing issues), speech/language issues (although this will bleed into neurology too for cognitive stuff like language - but hearing can affect it too) especially voice (think larynx, and even the recurrant laryngeal nerve off CN X can cause vocal issues for many reasons, or tumors) to nasal issues including allergies to reconstruction.
This is just a small sampling of what ENTs can do, but if you are really interested you should shadow one! What a great specialty 
Thank you so much for all of the information!
I had the perfect oportunity to shadow a good family freind who was an ENT. Sadly, I didn’t make my decision to become a doctor until it was too late (I thought my grades were subpar) 
I do remember some conversations with him and one of the reasons I’m interested is because of the variety in patients and in cases he seemed to have. I’ve had plenty of my own troubles causing me to see him often which is why I find it interesting as well. I didn’t realize how much surgery was involved.
And I do like surgery
I also forgot balance (duh) too, since it’s so closely liked with hearing (semicircular canals articulate with cochlea). That is a very interesting area in itself!
As a quick yet humourous aside, a woman in our lab the other day referred to her “otorhinolarynGYNocologist”.
I hope I’m better with patients (when I get them), because I just fell apart laughing!
oh man. That’s really an interesting specialty!!!
Quote:
Thank you so much for all of the information!
I had the perfect oportunity to shadow a good family freind who was an ENT. Sadly, I didn’t make my decision to become a doctor until it was too late (I thought my grades were subpar)
I do remember some conversations with him and one of the reasons I’m interested is because of the variety in patients and in cases he seemed to have. I’ve had plenty of my own troubles causing me to see him often which is why I find it interesting as well. I didn’t realize how much surgery was involved.
And I do like surgery
Hi there,
I am sure that you can find an ENT to shadow if you have the interest. Contact your local medical society and get a couple of names. Most folks are happy to have pre-meds. If you are in DC, I can give you a couple of names of giants in ENT who love to have pre-med students shadow them.
Natalie