I think we should change the mnemonic "ROAD"

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millepora

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I don't think the mnemonic stands for an accurate symbolism of competitiveness anymore, since Anesthesiology is no longer very competitive.

Maybe we should change it to POUND...haha

P- Plastics
O- Optho, Ortho, Oto
U- Urology
N- Neurosurgery
D- Derm
 
It wasn't about competitiveness, it was about the life style.
 
I have no issue with removing anesthesia, but some of those like neurosurgery have killer hours.
 
I've been frequenting the gas boards lately... and those are one happy group... unlike anything you see on SDN. I think that shows what kind of lifestyle they have. Or if anything, the kind of people it attracts.

Also, ROAD had nothing to do with competitiveness.
 
I think ROAD is the lifestyle specialties, not the most competitive. Obviously there is some crossover.
 
Is neurosurgery really that competitive?

Seems not many would want to work resident hours as an attending. The hours in NS are brutal and rarely get better.
 
vancouvergeorge said:
Is neurosurgery really that competitive?

Seems not many would want to work resident hours as an attending. The hours in NS are brutal and rarely get better.
Click to expand...

The short answer is yes.

There just aren't that many spots and while most people wouldn't want to do it, it self selects for a very highly motivated group of people. It is less competitive than derm and plastics, but pretty similar to the other surgical subspecialties in terms of % matched, average board scores etc. You can check out the nrmp data, but last year 82% of US seniors matched.
 
Encephalectomy said:
The short answer is yes.

There just aren't that many spots and while most people wouldn't want to do it, it self selects for a very highly motivated group of people. It is less competitive than derm and plastics, but pretty similar to the other surgical subspecialties in terms of % matched, average board scores etc. You can check out the nrmp data, but last year 82% of US seniors matched.
Click to expand...

Basically +1 to everything said here. Just to add, a classmate of mine who rotated through neurosurgery had a brief conversation with with the PD, who told him in his program, the minimum cut off is 240 on Step I with some directly neurosurgery related research experience, just to have your application viewed. Not many want to do it because of hard work, hours, the stress, but it indeed seems to attracts echelon of the brilliant and sturdy souls.
 
I propose a compromise: we keep ROAD and add the POO specialties(to reflect the lifestyle).

Plastics
Ortho
Oto
 
physics junkie said:
I propose a compromise: we keep ROAD and add the POO specialties(to reflect the lifestyle).

Plastics
Ortho
Oto
Click to expand...
All the guys in these specialties seem to work their asses off. Sure, they get to do the coolest stuff, and get paid very handsomely, but adding POO would smear ROAD's reputation.
 
Yeah, its all about lifestyle, and most of those dont have a good lifestyle, my roomate is ENT and the work a lot, so do plastics and ortho. Now if you really wanted to add a specialty, it should be PM&R, aka Plenty of Money and Relaxation. We should also add Rad Onc and Psych. Everyone of my classmates that went into Psych love it, as it they dont work that much and love their lifestyle. We tease my other roomate because it seems like he never is at work(he is psych). So RADPROP? someone good at scrabble come up with something
 
Do we really need an acronym? Are you afraid you'll forget what you were interested in when you go to fill out the application?
 
WellWornLad said:
Do we really need an acronym? Are you afraid you'll forget what you were interested in when you go to fill out the application?
Click to expand...

Its just easier to ask someone if they are applying for one of the ROAD specialties than to list them out while talking to your classmate
 
Mr hawkings said:
Its just easier to ask someone if they are applying for one of the ROAD specialties than to list them out while talking to your classmate
Click to expand...

Who says that? "yo dude, are you going into a ROAD specialty?" lol
 
MeRLin443 said:
All the guys in these specialties seem to work their asses off. Sure, they get to do the coolest stuff, and get paid very handsomely, but adding POO would smear ROAD's reputation.
Click to expand...

Seriously, don't go smearing POO on all the ROAD guys...
 
vancouvergeorge said:
Is neurosurgery really that competitive?

Seems not many would want to work resident hours as an attending. The hours in NS are brutal and rarely get better.
Click to expand...

Well yeah. The reason people go into NS is because they really truly love what they're doing. The career is their life. And for some people that's all they really need. I personally wouldn't do it but I can understand why some people would like it.
 
I always had the feeling that the ROAD mnemonic came from the fact that they all have to do a TY/Prelim year, that could explain why Path isn't part of it.
 
penguin24 said:
I always had the feeling that the ROAD mnemonic came from the fact that they all have to do a TY/Prelim year, that could explain why Path isn't part of it.
Click to expand...

I was under the impression that it's the cushy lifestyle less work residencies... which Path really is not
 
Oh what the hell.

R - rads
O - ophtho
A - anesthesia
D - derm

P - plastics
O - oto
O - ortho
P - PMR
 
I don't understand why Ophthalmology is in this discussion. Lifestyle is great, but so is the lifestyle of a Psychiatrist. Pay is not good for Ophthalmology.

Take a look at this current ad, starting salary $106,000 to $125,000. In Chicago. Full time. A starting Psychiatrist makes more than that.

https://secure3.aao.org/professionalchoices/jobdetails.cfm?jid=24686&

If lifestyle and enjoyment are important to you, Ophtho is good.

If money is important to you, Ophtho is not the place to be. It has the reputation of making a lot of money when physicians used to get paid $2500 per cataract in the 90's, not the $580 bucks they make today for the same surgery.
 
Last edited:
golfman said:
I don't understand why Ophthalmology is in this discussion. Lifestyle is great, but so is the lifestyle of a Psychiatrist. Pay is not good for Ophthalmology.

Take a look at this current ad, starting salary $106,000 to $125,000. In Chicago. Full time. A starting Psychiatrist makes more than that.

If lifestyle and enjoyment are important to you, Ophtho is good.

If money is important to you, Ophtho is not the place to be. It has the reputation of making a lot of money when physicians used to get paid $2500 per cataract in the 90's, not the $580 bucks they make today for the same surgery.
Click to expand...
Trust me that's where all of medicine is headed. Remember what they say, don't do it for the money. Money can change with a stroke of legislator's pen or the whims of a bureaucrat.
 
Superfrost said:
Trust me that's where all of medicine is headed. Remember what they say, don't do it for the money. Money can change with a stroke of legislator's pen or the whims of a bureaucrat.
Click to expand...

Not to mention the 360-degree hijacking of medicine from NPs and PAs.

There is now a huge red target on Dermatology from the NP lobby. The good days of derm will disappear when every other NP becomes (nursing) "board certified in family dermatology." The derm NPs will get all the lucrative acne cases and leave the derm MDs with Medicare melanomas under global reimbursement.

Yale's PA program is called "Yale Physician Associate Program"
http://medicine.yale.edu/pa/

These people have no shame.

It wouldn't surprise me at all when NPs and PAs make more than MDs in a decade. All the liability will still be placed on the MDs.
 
vancouvergeorge said:
There is now a huge red target on Dermatology from the NP lobby. The good days of derm will disappear when every other NP becomes (nursing) "board certified in family dermatology." The derm NPs will get all the lucrative acne cases and leave the derm MDs with Medicare melanomas under global reimbursement.
Click to expand...

There does seem to be an obscene artificial shortage of dermatologists. No opinion on NPs being certified in derm but patients shouldn't have to wait 3 months to see a dermatologist when tons of people want to practice dermatology but can't.
 
dantt said:
there does seem to be an obscene artificial shortage of dermatologists. No opinion on nps being certified in derm but patients shouldn't have to wait 3 months to see a dermatologist when tons of people want to practice dermatology but can't.
Click to expand...
gfto. You do realize the reason why tons of people want to practice derm is because of the artificial shortage.
 
golfman said:
I don't understand why Ophthalmology is in this discussion. Lifestyle is great, but so is the lifestyle of a Psychiatrist. Pay is not good for Ophthalmology.

Take a look at this current ad, starting salary $106,000 to $125,000. In Chicago. Full time. A starting Psychiatrist makes more than that.

https://secure3.aao.org/professionalchoices/jobdetails.cfm?jid=24686&

If lifestyle and enjoyment are important to you, Ophtho is good.

If money is important to you, Ophtho is not the place to be. It has the reputation of making a lot of money when physicians used to get paid $2500 per cataract in the 90's, not the $580 bucks they make today for the same surgery.
Click to expand...

Wow!! Is this an outlier? I have heard FAR higher salaries than this...

p.s. a cataract takes about 20 minutes, so that's not a bad pay rate!! (Assuming that is the actual take-home after overhead...)
 
golfman said:
I don't understand why Ophthalmology is in this discussion. Lifestyle is great, but so is the lifestyle of a Psychiatrist. Pay is not good for Ophthalmology.

Take a look at this current ad, starting salary $106,000 to $125,000. In Chicago. Full time. A starting Psychiatrist makes more than that.

https://secure3.aao.org/professionalchoices/jobdetails.cfm?jid=24686&

If lifestyle and enjoyment are important to you, Ophtho is good.

If money is important to you, Ophtho is not the place to be. It has the reputation of making a lot of money when physicians used to get paid $2500 per cataract in the 90's, not the $580 bucks they make today for the same surgery.
Click to expand...
Major cities like Chicago are a bad place to look at sample salaries for specialties. It's almost always going to be lower there.
 
TheProwler said:
Major cities like Chicago are a bad place to look at sample salaries for specialties. It's almost always going to be lower there.
Click to expand...

True, but many people want to live in those major cities. A starting psychiatrist probably makes more than an Ophthalmologist in Chicago. And I've also heard of an Ophthalmologist with a starting salary of $80,000 in Boston.

My whole point in posting, though, was to point out that Ophtho isn't as lucrative as Radiology, Anesthesia, or Derm. If anyone can show me a full time starting salary that is that low, even in Chicago, Boston, or L.A., I would be very surprised.
 
hurdlepup said:
Wow!! Is this an outlier? I have heard FAR higher salaries than this...

p.s. a cataract takes about 20 minutes, so that's not a bad pay rate!! (Assuming that is the actual take-home after overhead...)
Click to expand...

Most starting salaries are that low in big cities. Or lower, as I just posted (80k). If you want to practice in a little rural town you could probably make more.

A cataract does take little time, but that is sometimes a bad thing, because so many people get cataract surgeries done so quickly. Think about it, if you have 50,000 Ophthalmologist (I have no idea how many there are in the U.S., just a random number), think how many 20 minute cataract surgeries can be done in a day. You burn through potential patients very quickly. Imagine if you could do a hip surgery in 20 minutes. You would have the same number of patients, but you wouldn't get paid as much for doing it. Kind of a double edged sword. There is an oversupply of Ophthalmologists, and expecting to do 3 cataracts an hour for like 20 hours a week is unrealistic. Too much competition out there. IF there wasn't so much competition out there, it would be a lot easier to make money.

Ophtho needs to learn from Derm and Radiology, who (I've heard through the grapevine) have made it a point to not oversaturate the market (by not expanding residencies) with people in that field so those currently practicing can have it better.
 
vancouvergeorge said:
Not to mention the 360-degree hijacking of medicine from NPs and PAs.

There is now a huge red target on Dermatology from the NP lobby. The good days of derm will disappear when every other NP becomes (nursing) "board certified in family dermatology." The derm NPs will get all the lucrative acne cases and leave the derm MDs with Medicare melanomas under global reimbursement.

Yale's PA program is called "Yale Physician Associate Program"
http://medicine.yale.edu/pa/

These people have no shame.

It wouldn't surprise me at all when NPs and PAs make more than MDs in a decade. All the liability will still be placed on the MDs.
Click to expand...

You must have inside information that no one else has heard. The nursing lobby is after dermatology? They try to open one program in a university that trains anesthesia nps and already has 10 other programs running for everything from cards to family med and you say that they are coming after derma. Oh don't mistake urself, they are coming after everyone! But there is no specific conspiracy against derm.

U just have to realize there will be a two tier system. Government insurance with np and cash with md. The question u have to ask is if u think ur field is cheap enough that people will be able to pay cash. Fo reference compare ur field to dentistry prices. Anymore expensive and people will not be alble to afford cash thus having to use government insurance.

This is why you think surgery fields would be the safest but in reality family med like specialities will be the place to be in the future. No one can afford a 20000 dollar surgery in cash without an unacceptable mortgage on their house. Therefore, that hip surgery will be picked up by the gov with their price fixing (ya know bc hip surgery is a top 10 driver of health care cost).

Compare that to a 170 dollar family visit or a 200 dollar derm visit. Very payable. Therfore a cash market can develop. And for the people who can't pay there will be government/government controlled private insurance staffed with nps. This may lead to some salary depression but in reality it will probably just make the job alittle easier as the day won't be quite as full (more competition)


Just my thoughts after reading and thinking for a long time.
 
golfman said:
I don't understand why Ophthalmology is in this discussion. Lifestyle is great, but so is the lifestyle of a Psychiatrist. Pay is not good for Ophthalmology.

Take a look at this current ad, starting salary $106,000 to $125,000. In Chicago. Full time. A starting Psychiatrist makes more than that.

https://secure3.aao.org/professionalchoices/jobdetails.cfm?jid=24686&

If lifestyle and enjoyment are important to you, Ophtho is good.

If money is important to you, Ophtho is not the place to be. It has the reputation of making a lot of money when physicians used to get paid $2500 per cataract in the 90's, not the $580 bucks they make today for the same surgery.
Click to expand...

Ophtho has more specialties in and of itself too... and those are some pretty low numbers on salary. I could believe it though as there are tons and tons of general ophthalmologists. There aren't all that many retinal surgeons though. People who open Lasik centers also mint money.

Also I've heard closer to an average of 150k in the tristate area.
 
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