Which is harder: Radiology or Pathology?

Which is more of a tree: a maple or an oak?

Sorry question...but I would dispute the choosing of either one. Either has both extremely challenging and extremely mundane cases. Both fields require a component of anal retentiveness. I look at pathology as "hard fact" and radiology as "ideas and concepts". Obviously disputable classification.

Choose what appeals to you more. (Though you already are on the road to path right?)

Mindy

Actually pathology has two board exams, but you can take them both at the same time. Not to mention all the fellowship boards.

I don't think either is harder than the other both require detail oriented thinking and a large knowledge base. I would find rads tougher personally due to all the interventional stuff that rads does now. Too much like surgery for me. There are certain rotations in path I find tough just because it is not really the part of path that I love. But, when I get out of training and get a real job I will limit the amount of time I spend doing those activities. Rads generally has worse call than we do in residency. In private practice both rads and path have similar call. Of course in path you don't have to do a traditional "intern" year.

I considered Rads, but not real hard, with the push toward interventional radiology which I have zero interest in I always thought I may not be happy with it. Path on the other hand I just totally loved when I did my fourth year rotation. My rads rotation was only fair.

i can understand your difficulty in deciding between rads and path. i am a path applicant, but i loved my rads rotation maybe because the thinking processes were very similar between the two (i am talking about diagnostic radiology and surgical pathology, as i don't have much experience in CP or interventional rads). they both sought to answer essentially two types of questions through visual pattern recognition: 1) what is it? and 2) how bad is it? pathology is probably better at answering the first question and radiology better at answering the second. since radiology is more or less non-invasive, imaging has more clinical uses in the day to day care of patients, but in cases where a firm diagnosis must be made, pathology almost always has the final word. personally, i find pathology more satisfying because i prefer to see the actual thing rather than shadows. pathology also allows you to go alot further in terms of understanding the biology of disease because you have the actual tissue, but i understand that is changing with the development of fMRI, PET scans, etc. anyway, i wish you luck whichever one you choose. if you haven't already taken a path elective, you should definitely do so before you decide as the daily activities in rads and path are vastly different and there's really no way to know whether you will like it until you have tried it.

Yep, do rotations in both that should answer any questions you have. You don't want to make a decision unless you do, there is too much riding on the outcome.

good luck