Mammography

[Studebug]

I have read several posts in different sites of the dislike of mamography in radiology. Can anyone shed some light on why this area is so disliked?😕

 

[Bevo]

maybe malpractice/lawsuits? maybe cause reading mammography isn't that great. I dunno, I still haven't done a rotation in yet...Hard to tell what is what on those mamms though.

But its a field thats paying very well right now.

 

[colbgw02]

The biggest factor is probably the liability, but there are other reasons as well. For a group of people (radiologists) who already prefer minimal patient contact, having to deal with scores and scores of women who either have or are afraid they have breast cancer can be too much. Other than that, the work can be extremely tedious, and the diagnoses and recommendations are very algorithmic. You need not necessarily have very good critical thinking skills to be a good mammographer.

There are some upsides though. There's plenty of patient contact, if that turns you on, and there's a nice mix of modalities. Depending on how modern your department is, mammography is typically the last bastion of screen-film radiography, which is sorta neat to see in practice.

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

The phrase I see batted around is "One organ, one disease". It's not entirely true, but when you compare how vast the rest of radiology is and then look at the narrow focus of mams, it turns off a lot of people. Add to that the liability (breast cancer middiagnosis/management is the biggest source of lawsuits for everyone in medicine) and the monotomy...

 

[MrBurns10]

The phrase I see batted around is "One organ, one disease". It's not entirely true, but when you compare how vast the rest of radiology is and then look at the narrow focus of mams, it turns off a lot of people. Add to that the liability (breast cancer middiagnosis/management is the biggest source of lawsuits for everyone in medicine) and the monotomy...

Good points. Though I don't think it's as monotonous as one would think, with all the available procedures and all. It's a great field for people who enjoy radiology but want patient contact and procedures (but not the lifestyle of IR).