Mentorship for medical students

[mikkey]

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Hey,
I was wondering if there were any mentorship programs to help out med students interested in Radiology. My school doesn't have much and our Radiology residency program directors don't really know what to do with us.
Any tips, advice or websites?
Thanks!

 

[penguin24]

The best candid advice will be given to you by upperclassmen going into Rads. I would make friends w/ one of them and shoot your e-mails about the details of making yourself a competitive Rads applicant, regarding step 1, aoa, research, clinical grades, letters, etc.

In addition, seek out one Rads attendings in your home hospital and have a meeting. State your interest in the field and ask some Q's, 'is radiology a growing field?', 'Will radiology ever be outsourced to other countries'. This will get you recognized by your home program radiology dept & will help you out when it comes time to get a letter of rec.

This is a good website to see what kind of applicants get interviews at which Rads programs: http://radiology.matchapplicants.com/
However, not every Rads applicant posts here, so the info may be scewed

 

[MossPoh]

In the same light, if one's school doesn't have a radiology residency program and has primarily private practice radiologists in the community, is there way to gain access to research? Research is something I want to do out of my own interest but it seems difficult to find anyone.

I have a great interest in pretty much everything Radiology but have little guidance. It is difficult to find an upperclassman with the distributed clinical model my school uses.

While I am keeping all options open (even doing neurology research in the summer), I feel I will keep coming back Rads. Having a father who is a radiologists and a mother who sold radiology equipment and was a tech kind of skewed my viewpoint of medicine. (There are obvious jokes engrained in that last sentence I know)

 

[penguin24]

Radiology is one of the best fields out there, you'd be hard-pressed to find a better one. That's too bad you don't have a Rads residency, b/c it does make your battle harder, but you can still do it. For research I guess you could go to your Dean's office & state your interest in Rads and ask how you can go about getting involved in a research project. Maybe there is a non-radiology physician doing research using imaging that you can help w/. They should be able to hook you up w/ somebody doing research.

I feel a little case-report or any rads research could open a couple more doors when it comes time to apply & will give you more credibility about your dedication to the field. However, I still believe that Step 1 & M3 clerkships should be your main focus (esp Medicine & Surgery).