- Joined
- Mar 29, 2007
- Messages
- 7
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Hi all,
Congrats to everyone who matched! I was wondering if anyone with considerable expertise and foresight in the field could comment on the following?
When I browsed through the match stats, I was a bit surprised that 142 residency positions were available this year. Yes, it's good that we're allowing more high-caliber students to match into this field. But, on the flip side, does the world really need that many rad onc's?
correct me if i'm wrong, but only 4 or 5 years ago, a little over 100 rad onc residency positions were available. Why have we grown so much since then? obviously, the field is growing considerably, and more academic centers are opening or expanding their rad onc departments (and thus their need for more residents) ... but for those residents graduating in a few years and beyond, will we be saturating the (academic and private practice) market with radiation oncologists?
Has the leadership of Radiation Oncology considered this potential problem? Are they doing anything to try to correct for it. I may be wrong here, but I feel like there are a half-dozen to a dozen departments out there that see too few patients to justify the number of residents in their program. Are there efforts to try to minimize these programs?
After going through the interview trail, it seemed to me that many departments have been trying to add residency positions in order to either 1) better handle increasing patient volume and/or 2) allow for more protected research time. I think the former reason is justifiable, but the latter (in hindsight) seems like it may be partly contributing to this potential problem.
Please offer your insight as I think it would be useful for prospective applicants and for those who matched in recent years.
Best regards.
Congrats to everyone who matched! I was wondering if anyone with considerable expertise and foresight in the field could comment on the following?
When I browsed through the match stats, I was a bit surprised that 142 residency positions were available this year. Yes, it's good that we're allowing more high-caliber students to match into this field. But, on the flip side, does the world really need that many rad onc's?
correct me if i'm wrong, but only 4 or 5 years ago, a little over 100 rad onc residency positions were available. Why have we grown so much since then? obviously, the field is growing considerably, and more academic centers are opening or expanding their rad onc departments (and thus their need for more residents) ... but for those residents graduating in a few years and beyond, will we be saturating the (academic and private practice) market with radiation oncologists?
Has the leadership of Radiation Oncology considered this potential problem? Are they doing anything to try to correct for it. I may be wrong here, but I feel like there are a half-dozen to a dozen departments out there that see too few patients to justify the number of residents in their program. Are there efforts to try to minimize these programs?
After going through the interview trail, it seemed to me that many departments have been trying to add residency positions in order to either 1) better handle increasing patient volume and/or 2) allow for more protected research time. I think the former reason is justifiable, but the latter (in hindsight) seems like it may be partly contributing to this potential problem.
Please offer your insight as I think it would be useful for prospective applicants and for those who matched in recent years.
Best regards.
