MS4 applying to not sure yet in a couple months. I’ve been IM vs Rads vs Anesthesia for awhile but I’m really disliking my current IM sub I (love the knowledge but so much of the day is spent “not doing medicine”) and I didn’t love my anesthesia rotation but left thinking it would be a fine career path.
On the contrary I actually really liked my radiology rotation. Everyone kept saying “rads is super boring to watch, but great when you’re doing it” but I still found myself pretty engaged and fascinated most of the time. In 4 weeks I saw so much cool **** (so many tumor boards, esthesioneuroblastoma, MRA lymphangiography, VHL hemangioastomas in the spinal cord, congenital cardiac imaging, and so much more). We’d have lunch lectures on ILD imaging and then the next day a lecture on pediatric neuroimaging. I was blown away by the attendings knowledge base not just with anatomy and rare pathology, but with their knowledge of management of diseases too. Things like surgical approaches for elbow fractures, different approaches for imperforate anus. How angioinvasive fungal sinusitis presents and how this subtle finding can clue you in versus this other subtle finding. Super rare diseases I’ve never heard of before, temporal bone anatomy and how x ENT procedure will work or won’t depending on this or that finding, etc. it was all very impressive and interesting for me.
I know everything becomes routine after years as an attending (even brain surgery) but I feel that radiology has some unique challenges that could make the routine worse?? l think most attendings can kind of coast throughout their day with the average patient and everything will be fine (your 1000th lap chole doesn’t require maximum brain power), however I feel like if you start coasting in radiology you’re going to miss things. Then that risk obviously goes up with the huge volume of reads in modern radiology. I guess I just wonder if you still find it interesting and stimulating going through your 70th CT scan of the day especially when you still have to be “on” for it and highly detailed orientated even in the last hour of your shift? Does this get tedious by your 20,000th scan or is it still enjoyable/tolerable/interesting enough?
On the contrary I actually really liked my radiology rotation. Everyone kept saying “rads is super boring to watch, but great when you’re doing it” but I still found myself pretty engaged and fascinated most of the time. In 4 weeks I saw so much cool **** (so many tumor boards, esthesioneuroblastoma, MRA lymphangiography, VHL hemangioastomas in the spinal cord, congenital cardiac imaging, and so much more). We’d have lunch lectures on ILD imaging and then the next day a lecture on pediatric neuroimaging. I was blown away by the attendings knowledge base not just with anatomy and rare pathology, but with their knowledge of management of diseases too. Things like surgical approaches for elbow fractures, different approaches for imperforate anus. How angioinvasive fungal sinusitis presents and how this subtle finding can clue you in versus this other subtle finding. Super rare diseases I’ve never heard of before, temporal bone anatomy and how x ENT procedure will work or won’t depending on this or that finding, etc. it was all very impressive and interesting for me.
I know everything becomes routine after years as an attending (even brain surgery) but I feel that radiology has some unique challenges that could make the routine worse?? l think most attendings can kind of coast throughout their day with the average patient and everything will be fine (your 1000th lap chole doesn’t require maximum brain power), however I feel like if you start coasting in radiology you’re going to miss things. Then that risk obviously goes up with the huge volume of reads in modern radiology. I guess I just wonder if you still find it interesting and stimulating going through your 70th CT scan of the day especially when you still have to be “on” for it and highly detailed orientated even in the last hour of your shift? Does this get tedious by your 20,000th scan or is it still enjoyable/tolerable/interesting enough?
