How choose radiology?
Started by MedManU
Mostly it's a matter of knowing your own personality. Do you think you're the type of person who would enjoy sitting at a computer all day instead of running around the wards? Do you like doing lot's of reading? Do you like solving puzzles and playing video games? If you answered yes to the above three questions, you'll likely enjoy radiology. I did and I'm very content in the field.
Unfortunately, it's actually kind of hard to get a sense of what radiology is like as a med student. At most places you just kind of watch other people read films which is a bit like watching a translator work when you only know a few words of the language.
It's a shame actually cause I don't think it would be too hard to accumulate a teaching file of a few hundred CXRs and let the medical students go through them generating "reports" to get a sense of what it would be like....
Unfortunately, it's actually kind of hard to get a sense of what radiology is like as a med student. At most places you just kind of watch other people read films which is a bit like watching a translator work when you only know a few words of the language.
It's a shame actually cause I don't think it would be too hard to accumulate a teaching file of a few hundred CXRs and let the medical students go through them generating "reports" to get a sense of what it would be like....
I asked this very question of a dean when I was an MS3. Most of his answers weren't very helpful (like encouraging me to sneak away to the reading room while on a ward rotation to go over my patients' films, as if any resident wants to deal with that). But I ended up spending a couple of days in the radiology department over the Christmas break of my MS3 year. It wasn't enough to totally sell me on rads, but at least I knew that I wouldn't go bat-s**t crazy sitting in a reading room all day.
That is what confirmed it for me... An attending I was shadowing logged me onto a PACS station and had me go through his interesting cases.👍 Otherwise, I mostly fell asleep watching other rads dictate... 😴
IMHO, you don't get a real sense of what radiology is like until you have the dictaphone in your hands and actually reading the studies. It's like how you don't know how medicine really is until you go through medical school and residency.
I think that if you enjoy problem-solving, playing video games, and don't need constant patient contact then radiology will suit you.
I think that if you enjoy problem-solving, playing video games, and don't need constant patient contact then radiology will suit you.
I just started my 3rd yr and I'm in a similar boat. Something I've found helpful is that whenever I have extra time at the hospital and I don't feel like reading I'll pull up some imaging studies whether they're new or old, required by my residents or not.
Thanks everyone for all the replies. I love the problem-solving aspect of radiology and the ability to find so many different diagnoses. The only thing that scares me about the field is the sitting in a room looking at films all day long. I'm worried it may not be active enough for me. Only experience will tell I suppose.
