Bored in Radiology - Switch Residency?

[Radology]

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Your life will only get worse as an attending unlike other specialties. Do it.

Two weeks into being an attending and I can assure you I've never been happier to come to work every day

 

[qxrt]

Your life will only get worse as an attending unlike other specialties. Do it.

Yes, but when you consider that most radiology residencies are 8am-5pm + occasional weekends or similar variation, then a slightly worse version of that is still way better than what most other specialties have. Don't lose perspective.

 

[msk2016]

Two weeks into being an attending and I can assure you I've never been happier to come to work every day

Totally agree. I just finished my first year and I love that my job is sort of routine at this point. Call is super busy but looking at everything, I'm in a great place. If you can not find happiness in radiology, find another field. Just know that there is no guarantee that you will be happy in another specialty once you really get to know the job, and you can't know the job until you have done it (and 1 year as a junior resident may not be sufficient to know the ins and outs). I have seen miserable physicians in every specialty. The grass is not always greener.

 

[meister]

Lol @ suggesting EM as an alternative specialty if you worry about burnout.

No specialty is immune from burnout.

 

[BillrothI]

@lolly1212 and @johnjohn1990 - sorry to necrobump, but just curious: what did you end up doing?

Thanks,
Bill

 

[GoPelicans]

I'm guessing he stayed in rads. I'm an R1, I messaged him a few months ago when I was starting rads and feeling a little down about leaving the independence of intern year to knowing nothing as a new rads resident, and he sent me a very supportive message to stick it out. I'm glad he did because I finally feel like I like I'm starting to like my job.

 

[BillrothI]

Thank you for the update, @GoPelicans ! Glad to hear that everything worked out for Lolly and that you're beginning to enjoy R1.

-Bill

 

[NDcienporciento100]

Rising R2 at a well regarded academic program. I'm so bored. If I could never look at another scan in my life I'd be happy. It's just not what I thought it would be when I was a med student. In med school I loved it and got honors in it. My advisors told me I would like rads. I thought I would absolutely hate prelim year in medicine but I didn't. I dread coming to work everyday. I count down the minutes until I can go home. I miss the other parts of Medicine, the labs, the ddx, putting it all together with the history... This is not existent in rads. I consider IR because it's more clinical but I don't like the procedures. The thought of taking senior call just makes me want to cry. I'm not motivated to study rads but I would study general medicine (IM or crit care) gladly. I feel like I'm in the wrong place. That's not to say I never enjoy a case. We have excellent teachers and I have only good things to say about the program itself. So that's not the issue. I don't know if it will get better and I should ride it out or if I should get out now. I feel like I'm going to hate reading 70 scans a day as an attending with so much pressure. It sounds terrible. I probably would do anesthesia or crit care or maybe ED if I would do it over but those specialities also have problems. Thoughts? Ideas?

That’s tough sorry your going through this! Haveing had exposure to medicine 90%> scut work despo nightmare, insurance issues writing long mostly useless notes that where designed for insurance companies and not patient care, 10%< ddx labs and actually thinking about medicine.
Rads> 90% objective data what is going on in this image interpretation and move no dealings with BS.
Different strokes for different folks.