i met a bunch of dudes that just read on laptops from home and make 300,000-400,000 and have lots of time with the family, that looks nice actually, but reading all day isnt exactly saving lives hands on. otherwise, there is the risk of not matching in rads and having to scramble to some leftover med spot and not terribly excited about. the rest of the 'ROAD' looks out of my leauge...
Keep in mind that these telerad stories that you hear are not the norm. A radiology residency is not about reading studies in your pj's. After talking to a few PDs and residents, it has become pretty clear to me that radiology involves A LOT of self-directed reading. Depending upon the training program, call nights can get quite busy. Furthermore, if PDs get a sense that you are only after a lifestyle specialty, this is a major turnoff.
As for playing a role in saving lives "hands on," I have a few thoughts on that. Think about how often physicians of any specialty actually bring a patient back from the verge of death. It does not really happen as often as ER or Grey's Anatomy would have us believe. Unless you are doing EM or surgical trauma, the practice of medicine doesn't really carry all that much drama. The average ER has trauma, MI's, or other acute events. But these events pop up between a steady flow of runny noses, suicidal ideations, social admissions, COPD/CHF exacerbations, minor lacs, and atypical chest pain that eventually rules out for MI. As physicians of any specialty, we will have to wade through a sea of problems/complaints which are supratentorial, benign, or a direct result of the patients' poor lifestyle choices--smoking, drinking, eating too much, exercising too little, failing to "just say NO" to drugs, or engaging in unprotected sex. In reality, most of the potential to save lives lies in prevention--finding an effective way to save patients from themselves. But all good physicians should maintain an index of suspicion that makes them able to detect the ability to recognize threats to life, limb, sight, and quality of life. In radiology, you might not get to be a direct part of those TV drama moments in patient's lives (after all, the Thursday night drama on NBC is called "ER" not "CT"). But radiologists play a big roll in the background. A surgeon may choose to operate or not to operate based upon a radiologist's interpretation. In IR, radiologists might be consulted for a vena cava filter in a patient with DVT/PE who cannot be anticoagulated. A peds radiologist might discover the subtle fractures in various stages of healing that raises the suspicion of abuse, and ultimately leads a child to be removed from an abusive home. If you need to get credit from the patients/families in order to be fulfilled as a physician, that doesn't make you a bad person. But it might make you an unhappy radiologist. Just be honest with yourself, and hopefully the right answer will come to you. Best of luck with your decision.
(Disclaimer: I am a 4th year med student, and this is just one MS-4's opinion)
