lankysudanese--I apologize for coming across so harsh above. Of course I'm biased. Every opinion is going to have an individual biases embedded in it. I feel strongly about this issue because I almost made the biggest mistake of my life doing medicine over radiology, and would like to encourage others who are trying to make that choice not to potentially make the same mistake. Given my level of training and relative experience and exposure to the system of medicine, I'd also argue that I'm able to give a less biased opinion than yourself on the topic. I don't think you are far along enough to have shaken general stereotypes of specialties nor do you fully understand what each specialty actually does on a given day...especially in the private practice world...your "people skills" comment is a good indicator of that. You probably also believe that Radiologists sit in the dark all day alone and look at films.
All of medicine, to a great degree, is "cookbook" these days...even Radiology. As I said earlier, technology in terms of imaging as well as easy ability to sample tissue, and improved reliable lab studies and results has taken the guesswork out of diagnosing things based on symtoms and exam. Couple that with the legal system, and there is no way you are going to treat something, no matter how confident you are, until you get the go ahead from path or rads or the lab of exactly what's there. Go ahead and treat a IIa small cell lung cancer in some manner that isn't evidence based in the literature and have some complication happen and then get sued. Then try to explain to the jury that you didn't use reseached based criteria because you were using your intellect and factoring other things in the treatment and see how far that gets you!
I'm happy there are people that enjoy Internal Medicine. The health care system would not work without them. If Medicine is really your thing and Radiology doesn't appeal to you at all, then go for it. However if you are considering BOTH, then please take the time to think about things very strongly, talk to as many people as you can who are more advanced in their careers before making that decision. The original poster cited reasons of the intellectual problem solving of medicine and the opportunity to do a fellowship as reasons to do it over Radiology. You added (or inferred) people skills. I'm simply saying from experiece that those reasons are based on stereotypes and are not very valid in actual practice. Again, I'm only talking to the people who this thread was directed to: those trying to decide between Radiology and IM. For those of you that clearly enjoy medicine and radiology is just not your thing, go for it...God bless you, I'm glad you are out there and were made the way you are!!!
For those of you making a CHOICE, consider this:
Job A: 600,000K/year, 45 hour weeks, no weekends, no overnight call, 13 weeks off a year, ability to do your job anywhere in the world, knowing you will get off at 5 pm no matter what, knowing your evening plans will not be interrupted, consulted upon by most every physician in the hospital on big cases and have their actions based upon what you say, seeing every single big case that comes through the hospital no matter what dicipline, eating meals exactly when you want to, going to the bathroom exactly when you want to.
Job B: 200,000K/year, 60 hour weeks, rotating weekends and overnight call which are brutal because you are covering all your partners on your own, sleepless nights, early mornings, unexpected late evenings, 6 weeks off a year, if you have to switch job locations/cities you have to start over by getting a whole new patient base, social issues, missing out on most of the big cases, and being keyholed into a specific type of medicine for your career.
Ask your family, friends, loved ones what they would choose. Think about what will be important to you in 10 years, in 20. Think of what the general public would choose if given these two options.
Even if the "intellectual" nature of medicine were slightly better, would it be worth it? For every one "cool" case you are going to see, you are going to up in the middle of the night twenty-fold more times dealing with mundane, routine, boring things.
