How much diagnostic?

[MouseChair]

Rad resident here

It’s hard to discern what it’s like in the community while working in an academic center. How much diagnostic radiology are you all doing in your practice? Is there opportunities for IR to take DR call to supplement income?

I have heard of practice models where IRs will work 1 week Interventional, 1 week DR etc. is this the case, or is it more likely IR every day plus dictating cases in between studies?

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[SeisK]

Rad resident here

It’s hard to discern what it’s like in the community while working in an academic center. How much diagnostic radiology are you all doing in your practice? Is there opportunities for IR to take DR call to supplement income?

I have heard of practice models where IRs will work 1 week Interventional, 1 week DR etc. is this the case, or is it more likely IR every day plus dictating cases in between studies?

It’s variable, you’ll see all kinds of setups. The median IR doc does 50% split IR DR. How that split manifests is dependent on the practice, sometimes dictating between cases and sometimes not. Yes you can supplement income with general ED call.

 

[robotvascular]

I do mostly IR (clinic, procedures) and minimal diagnostic which is limited to interpreting vascular ultrasounds on my patients.

No call other than for my patients. No weekends.

 

[irwarrior]

Variable practices. More and more VIR are responsible for clinics and as that becomes more and more standard it will allow less time for diagnostics. The private equity and many DR groups usually want IR to read films in between cases etc as that generates high RVUs and closes the lists. They PE groups also want IR to do the minors (ie para/thora/lp/arhrograms/ lines and even barium studies ) to enable their DR employees to churn through the studies and be most productive. The main challenge IR faces is the quantity and frequency of call. Often get called for bleeding and sepsis and dvt/pe etc and some sites stroke call. This can make it rough as you can get called in the middle of the night. The OBL/ASC are growing in popularity as it tends to be high end cases (PAD, fibroids/ prostates/ pain interventions , some oncology , dialysis) without the call issues. Though it is still busy and you take a fair amount of risk to run your own shop.

 

[Isonicphoton]

Depends on the job that you take. There are a lot of options. General private practice, hospital based, OBL, etc.

You can essentially never read another x-ray and only do IR forever if you so choose at an OBL and even have clinical days and be more a procedural clinician.

You can join a traditional private practice group and read every diagnostic modality and subspecialty under the sun while doing procedures as well as taking IR and DR call.

Or you can be hospital employed and be somewhere in between, mostly IR with expectation to pick up some outpatient CT cases or something between procedures.