How Bad Is It?

[soccerusa]

So I've read several threads on here concerning the "blood bath" in the red journal and the recent thread on the ASTRO panel concerning job market. I am currently an MS1 who is very involved in the rad rnc department, and I have wanted to do rad onc for a long time as I worked in it as an undergrad. So my question is this: How bad is the outlook? Is it bad enough that it should dissuade me from continuing down this path?

I really love the field - everything from the technology to the chance to work with cancer patients, which I find really rewarding. However, I am not naive enough to think it is the only field I could be happy in. These discussions on the forums make me a little nervous as I feel like I am putting my eggs in one basket as I become so involved in rad onc.

I think I have a decent grasp on the issues being discussed in the threads, but I do not have the experience to be able to weigh what people think the tangible impact on people finishing residency 9-10 years down the line. Will it mean making less money? How different is this from the decreasing salaries across the board? How hard will it be to find a good job? Will it be as bad as the Canadian rad onc problems?

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[medgator]

It depends on your geographic preference imo. If you're willing to work in more rural settings away from the coasts, you should be fine.

If you have highly desirable and specific geographic preference, it might be a problem. Again, it comes to down to job quality, salary and location..... you have to compromise on one of those to try and improve the other two. It's hard to get exactly what you want.

For example, L.A. is going to be a tougher market to get into than WI/MN/OH. You might be able to land that gig in L.A., but it might involve covering multiple sites for lower pay. Or you may not be able to get a job in L.A. at all the year you graduate, until something opens up the following year. I don't think we will have the issues of canada or pathology in the U.S. yet, but the unchecked expansion in residency slots is not a good thing going forward.

99.999% of us love this field, but the downside is geographically, it can be much harder to land a job than primary care or other more in-demand specialties. Urology is made up of a lot of baby boomers, so they literally are looking for people left and right, not the case in rad onc.

 

[RadOncDoc21]

I also think salaries will decrease despite having to see more patients due to a steady decline in reimbursements.

As been said before in other threads, nobody knows what will happen in 9-10 years so just pick a field you enjoy and hope for the best.