Nucs Residents that are US Graduates of Medical School

[NeedAdvice1984]

Hey all,

I have trying to get more information on applying to residencies in nuclear medicine. I know there is quite a bit of doom and gloom on this forum, but I am interested in knowing the possibilities open to MD graduates from a medical school in the US as I fit this category. Are the possibilities for future jobs/training/specialization in imaging quite as dim? I would appreciate your responses. Feel free to respond either through this forum or PM. Reimbursement for your time etc can be arranged for your personal help.

Thank you

NeedAdvice1984

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[rxv421]

Yes, just as dim. No diagnostic radiology residency=No job regardless of where you went to medical school. My advise...dont do it!

 

[spaceman_spiff]

I know this is a couple of weeks late, but 1 year ago I had some of the same questions you are asking, even about how to apply because it seemed like no one at my med school knew anything about nuclear medicine. I went to med school on the west coast.

I did a lot of research myself by calling on the phone to almost all of the nucs programs in the country. The consensus was that if someone is interested in nucs, it's always better to go through radiology residency and then nucs fellowship over going straight to nucs only, if you want a job afterward, for reasons like sharing call and being able to read all the other stuff plus nucs.

HOWEVER, I was also told that being a US senior would have allowed me to "take my pick" of any nucs-only residency spot in the country because it is not competitive, which was encouraging to me at the time based on my scores. Also I was told nuclear medicine as a whole will be increasingly utilized in the near future because of new upcoming tracers used in PET and the increasing use of hybrid scans etc etc, that nucs was not "going away" anytime soon, and that job prospects in the future should be there if not increased by the time I get out. Sounds great, right? but I'd be lying if I said I believed all of that.

My advice to you would be to do what I did: if you are interested in nucs, apply broadly to rads and then later you can decide to do a fellowhsip in nucs if you're still interested in it. Hope that helps.

 

[Hedgeman]

Don't be fools, guys. Let me say this once and let it sink in:

ABNM stands for American Board of No Marketability