Hi. I am a med student who is doing is cardiology rotations. I just have a doubt regarding endovascular procedures. If I wanted to maximize my time doing endovascular procedures and not do open surgery (ruling out vascular surgery) should I go the cardiology or IR route. I want to be an expert in endovascular procedures and manage my patients. I know both of these specialities are very different but just a stupid med student asking a silly doubt
Endovascular training
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I
I saw an Interventional cardiologist do a bronchial artery embolization, which the fellow on call told was very rare. I was just wondering when do interventional cardiologists pick up reading chest ct for planning it and become versed with embolizing agents?
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interventional cardiologists definitely don't "read" the chest ct. a radiologist would read it and the cardiologist or IR would be consulted to do the embo
Thank you for replying! How common is it for a cardiologist to do BAE? I loved the procedures in the cath lab. Just wanted to get an idea
cardsperson
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Likely very institution specific, it doesn't happen at my institution.
Also, just general advice, but you really shouldn't choose a field because of one particular fairly rare procedure - even at a high volume cancer center, I doubt the endovascular folks are doing more than ten or so of these a year. You should choose based on the bread and butter. Do you like having to take patients with STEMIs to the cath lab and literally saving their life in <90 minutes on a daily basis? If so, go into interventional cards, since that's their bread and butter (along with a decent helping of TAVRs, PCI for other reasons, mechanical support, peripheral work, etc). If you'd rather be doing ports and abdominal angiography all day, go into IR.
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Just want to note the cardsperson might be a little biased to cards there. 🙂
IR isn't just a port and angiogram specialty; it can involve saving lives too (interventional onc and embolizations for brisk bleeds).
But overall I agree that you should pick a field based on the bread and butter. And the bread and butter is about more than just which procedures you get to do. Do you want to be a radiologist or a clinician?
IC is a kind of *cardiology*, which means you're expected not only to do procedures but also to follow patients in clinic, on the wards, and in the critical care unit (although usually as a consultant in the latter two cases). Most radiologists hate that kind of stuff and specifically went into radiology to avoid things like rounding, chart documentation, and dealing with the occasional whiny/behaviorally difficult patient. On the other hand IC docs love it. They feel comfortable running their own codes in the procedure suite (something an IR doc could never do).
IR isn't just a port and angiogram specialty; it can involve saving lives too (interventional onc and embolizations for brisk bleeds).
But overall I agree that you should pick a field based on the bread and butter. And the bread and butter is about more than just which procedures you get to do. Do you want to be a radiologist or a clinician?
IC is a kind of *cardiology*, which means you're expected not only to do procedures but also to follow patients in clinic, on the wards, and in the critical care unit (although usually as a consultant in the latter two cases). Most radiologists hate that kind of stuff and specifically went into radiology to avoid things like rounding, chart documentation, and dealing with the occasional whiny/behaviorally difficult patient. On the other hand IC docs love it. They feel comfortable running their own codes in the procedure suite (something an IR doc could never do).
Thank you. I think I didn't mind the rounding unless it went excessively long so much that my legs hurt. The best part of Medical school I enjoyed was the making a treatment plan and seeing the patient responds. I am just confused because rads/ir is one match while IC is three matches. And rads seems relatively relaxed. But I loved talking to patients and even when I did get annoyed by some patients I always got that gratification that I tried my best. I don't know how much radiologists talk to their clinical colleagues but I enjoyed every second of cards rotation even more than the GI rotation I was on. The impact was instant and these were tremendously sick patients that really needed help. So basically I am super confused right now!
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you definitely are confused.
rads might seem relaxed but it isn't. you are working at near top speed all day with little down time.
IR is the opposite of relaxed. there is a reason why it was relatively unpopular for years. the new popularity is kind of weird IMO and i dont understand it. maybe it is surgery people opting out of the brutal surgery residency for the less brutal IR residency?
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At a lot of places ports are going to midlevels. It's an easy and routine procedure.
Yea I have basically realized that if I keep trying to reason it out it's just gonna make me miserable. I am just going to go into internal medicine because I definitely liked that. And I loved cardiology even though the hours seemed hectic. Its just so logical and has a good combination of physiology, pathology and procedures. Basically I think I will always be interested to put a wire in a beating heart. So I am just gonna forget about the lifestyle, job market, city. Maybe I will regret it but atleast I will love my job. And I like IM too so I won't be miserable getting to cards either
