General Questions pertaining to Radiology as a specialty

[KeikoTanaka]

I'm a lowly OMS-II interested in Radiology as a specialty. Obviously I need to do rotations next year, but I'm sure even the small 1-2 months I get to see with Rads won't truly be a picture of the specialty as a whole. So here are some questions I have:

1. How much general medicine knowledge does a Radiologist need to retain? (I really love general medicine and I feel like certain knowledge is pertinent to be a "Doctor" - do you retain this information?)

2. What are the most in-demand Radiologist specialties/fellowships currently?

3. What do you predict will be the most in-demand Rad fellowships in the next 10-15 years?

4. Do General Radiologists need to keep up with more General Medicine than others (For example a Musculoskeletal trained Radiologist probably doesn't need to keep up too much on pharm and immunology? Maybe I'm wrong in thinking that?)

5. How do you know if you're right about a certain diagnosis? Do you follow-up with that Doctor that sent you the radiographs?

6. How do you decide who's images you want to see? (Is it truly just specialty-based or can you pretty much see/do anything if you're a generalist?)

7. How many images do you typically go through in a single day?

8. Do your eyes get hurt ever looking at screens all day long?

9. Do you feel like you get more opportunities to work with patients working in a hospital system/Get to see a wider range of pathologies?

10. If you work for a hospital directly, do you pretty much see the radiographs for everyone in that hospital for that day, whether they're admitted or being sent from the ER?

I feel like Radiology is one of those specialties I feel like I could love/be good at (I'm a computer geek with exquisite attention to detail) - But it's also the specialty I know the least about. I feel like they have a huge variety to their practice as a specialty, but each job within that specialty could be limited in what it does? I don't want to see 100 slides of different livers in one day when I could be looking at Neuro/GI/Lungs/Hearts/MSK etc etc.

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Dave1980]

1) Minimal.
2) Maybe breast? They are all in demand at the moment.
3) Unclear.
4) Huh?
5) Confirmation with CT/MRI/path.
6) Depends on the practice.
7) Images? or exams? 1000's of images.
8) Not mine.
9) Yes.
10) Yes

 

[jj117]

For the above writer, how much do you enjoy your career 10+ years in?
Do you regret the choice you made?
How is your work life balance?

 

[Dave1980]

For the above writer, how much do you enjoy your career 10+ years in?
Do you regret the choice you made?
How is your work life balance?

1) Refer to answer 1

2) Refer to answer 3

3) Pretty great

 

[KeikoTanaka]

1) Minimal.
2) Maybe breast? They are all in demand at the moment.
3) Unclear.
4) Huh?
5) Confirmation with CT/MRI/path.
6) Depends on the practice.
7) Images? or exams? 1000's of images.
8) Not mine.
9) Yes.
10) Yes

Yeah so when I said images I meant like one full CT/ one full MRI. Obviously theres many layers of images within each (1000s?) So is a single CT Scan considered an "exam"?

Also let me rephrase #4: Is there any subspecialty within Radiology that requires more of a knowledge of general medicine than other fields within radiology

 

[Dave1980]

IR needs to know general medicine. No one else does.

 

[Cognovi]

Also let me rephrase #4: Is there any subspecialty within Radiology that requires more of a knowledge of general medicine than other fields within radiology

General radiologists need to know the most general medicine. Subspecialists, by definition, need to know less generally about medicine. A neuroradiologist who does 100% neuroradiology does not need to know about the muscles of the foot or causes of postmenopausal bleeding.

Then your question becomes, who can call themselves a subspecialty radiologist but still practice a breadth that is akin to general radiology? Probably emergency radiology.

 

[KeikoTanaka]

General radiologists need to know the most general medicine. Subspecialists, by definition, need to know less generally about medicine. A neuroradiologist who does 100% neuroradiology does not need to know about the muscles of the foot or causes of postmenopausal bleeding.

Then your question becomes, who can call themselves a subspecialty radiologist but still practice a breadth that is akin to general radiology? Probably emergency radiology.

Is Emergency Radiology a fellowship? Or just a job that can be received after doing General Radiology fellowship

 

[Dave1980]

Is Emergency Radiology a fellowship? Or just a job that can be received after doing General Radiology fellowship

You need to learn to use google.

 

[KeikoTanaka]

You need to learn to use google.

Sorry, I forget my web browser is annoyingly set to Bing and when I typed it in it came up with Rad Tech jobs in the ED. You're right, google did work better -_-;

 

[Ho0v-man]

I have a question about emergency radiology: What is the procedural aspect of it? Some IR stuff is emergent and was wondering if that fell under the emergency rads umbrella.

If so, that would be kind of neat.

 

[UChicagoIR]

Zero procedures in emergency radiology. The term emergency simply refers to the fact that you're reading emergent/stat films on patients that come through the ER like trauma cases. Their role is to quickly turn over films for the ER. Emergent interventional cases are performed by IR/neuroIR.

I had never thought about it until you asked, but emergency radiology might be the one radiology subspecialty that does no procedures at all.

I have a question about emergency radiology: What is the procedural aspect of it? Some IR stuff is emergent and was wondering if that fell under the emergency rads umbrella.

If so, that would be kind of neat.

 

[colbgw02]

Zero procedures in emergency radiology. The term emergency simply refers to the fact that you're reading emergent/stat films on patients that come through the ER like trauma cases. Their role is to quickly turn over films for the ER. Emergent interventional cases are performed by IR/neuroIR.

I had never thought about it until you asked, but emergency radiology might be the one radiology subspecialty that does no procedures at all.

Did overnight shifts at level 1 trauma centers for 5+ years. Occasionally tapped a joint or did an LP in the middle of the night. Even got talked into a myelogram once by a neurosurgeon on a trauma patient. Wouldn’t go superlative and say zero procedures, but yeah, your job is largely to keep that list clean.