different oncolgy paths

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desertscholar

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Oncology is a career area that I am interested. I a job search at one of the physician job websites. They have three areas listed: medical oncology, radiation oncology, and hemat..(forget the suffix) oncology. What are some of the pros and cons of these different areas?
Thanks

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I'm not sure if you should be focused on oncology fields if you don't even know what hematology is. Hematology is a very related field to oncology and if you don't know what it is I would say you have not researched your career choice thoroughly enough. My advice - do some more investigating of the fields of medicine before limiting yourself to the field of oncology. Good luck.
 
I wouldnt be so harsh as to suggest someone should reconsider their interest in treating cancer because they dont know what hematology is. I can easily envision someone not yet in medicine who wants to go into it in order to treat cancer, and so who may not know what hematology is. I know I got into the field to treat cancer, but not hematological issues per se.

I wont bother talking about surgical or medical oncology (hematology-oncology) as they aren't my field and the folks in those fields can enlighten you.

Radiation Oncology is the treatment of cancer (and some benign conditions) with the use of ionizing radiation. The radiation oncologist has a very *very* deep and wide fund of knowledge on cancer, anatomy, imaging, and procedural issues; the technical aspect is indeed very procedural in nature in that your treatment plan will consider things like the given case's stage, surgery, extent of disease, extent of resection (if any) and proximity of normal tissues. To name a few relevant issues. Like a surgeon who must approach a case oriented in space, so too do radiation oncologists who develop three dimentional thinking. Technology is rapid and evolves fast. An understand of medical physics and radiobiology is gained during residency. We work with patients generally over a 5-8 week period of treatment (shorter usually in palliative cases) and then see them in the long term for follow-up. Its very satisfying. People can specialize in organ systems (ie prostate or breast), procedures (radiosurgery or brachytherapy) or populations (peds, gyne).

It's great!
 
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It also should be mentioned that the lifestyle in rad onc is very humane. ONe needs an ton of knowledge and the boards are someo f the most difficult to pass in medicine, but at least we get that reading time as we aren't in house over night and take beeper call generally speaking.
 
;) Okay, I may be blonde, but I do know what hematology is and means. My question was directed toward the specifics of, praticalities of and realities of working in these various fields and how they compare to each other. Trying do my research on possible career choices is all.
What would you say are the predominate age groups of people that you see?
Thanks for your responses
 
with regard to the lifestyle? The work you do every day? Med onc is for adults; ped on is for kids rad onc is for both. Med onc also does leukemias rad onc basically doesnt. Rad onc is technical, very academic and is almost surgical in approach (you need to know anatomy, details of tumor involvement and surgical intervention. Med onc requires IM first. Can you give more of an idea of what factors your interested in?
 
Don't forget surgical oncology, where you start with a general surgery residency, then do a surgical oncology fellowship. It is a very important aspect of oncology. Radiation and chemo come after someone takes out the tumor. Or vice versa in some cases depending on multiple factors. Sometimes the tumor is shrunk first, then surgically removed.
 
Originally posted by sleep deprived
Don't forget surgical oncology, where you start with a general surgery residency, then do a surgical oncology fellowship. It is a very important aspect of oncology. Radiation and chemo come after someone takes out the tumor. Or vice versa in some cases depending on multiple factors. Sometimes the tumor is shrunk first, then surgically removed.

And sometimes when surgery can't be done (and in some tumors ie lymphoma- isn't.
 
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