psych vs rads

[DJ1827]

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Hi all,

I'm conflicted. I am a 4th year applying for residency and I cannot decide between radiology and psychiatry. I understand that they are very different fields. However, there are aspects of each that are appealing to me.

First, I never considered psychiatry until I did the rotation. I then realized that everything I considered a real doctor to be, especially with regards to patient-doctor relationships, I saw most in psychiatry than any other rotation. I have always been interested in mental illness and behavior, but I never actually put 2 and 2 together and saw that psychiatry focused on exactly this. I have been told by many that I have a gift w/ patients, with building rapport with them, and I do enjoy talking to patients.

However, before taking my psychiatry rotation, I had already decided to apply in radiology. I have extensive imaging research under my belt. I can see many aspects of radiology that are interesting, including the instant gratification, the fact that I love anatomy, and being an expert in so many different areas of medicine. It also is devoid of many annoying aspects of medicine (all the orders, following potasium levels, calling consults, etc.). Also, I could certainly focus on psychiatric neuroimaging, which is incredibly interesting to me.

The negative aspects of each are obvious. For psychiatry, this includes low reimbursement, red tape, less respect, etc. A lot of what I consider interesting in psychiatry (acute psychoses, schizophrenia, other dramatic conditions) are probably not the majority of the practice in reality. For radiology, I would not be fulfilled by saving a person from committing suicide or by developing a relationship with any patient, and I will also have to endure many painful aspects of medicine that are not interesting to me in the least (MSK, chest, etc.)

At this point, I've received amazing interviews in each field. Many would envy me for either. I could not have asked for more, and institutions in each specialty have gone out of their way expressing interest to have me in their program. I feel very blessed for this opportunity. Most people I talk to say that I should do radiology, as it's more competitive and so many people would kill for the opportunity I've been given. Still, I'm not sure my heart is in it anymore (sometimes I wish I would never have had such a great experience in psych, that way I would not be confused...)

I'm conflicted. My heart says psychiatry, and my brain says radiology. I do not come from an affluent background, and I've put a lot of pressure on myself to succeed academically and financially in my life. I know that I may enjoy psychiatry more, but I will certainly not be making as much and I do have a HUGE amount of loans to pay back. I also think that, in the end, this is just a job, and I am possibly overrating psychiatry and patient-doctor relationships (I've been told these get old...), but it would certainly be great to do something I love and get paid for it. I've never felt this before, and I don't come from a family who have had this luxury, so this is on me...

I have only a few weeks before I have to submit my rank order list.

please help.

 

[Sneezing]

I would say to look downstream. See yourself a couple of yours in the future. What do you envision? What kind of job do you see yourself having? After you do this, think about which specialty will most likely match this.

-Psych you can open your own practice, and be your own boss.
-Psych involves more domains of thinking beyond pattern recognition and finishing with the statement "suggest further imaging with _______ and to clinically correlate"
-If you continue on the research path, I would venture to say you'll have a deeper impact with psych imaging research than on the radiology side. There are psych imaging fellowships.
-The odds of radiology pay decreasing is better than the odds of psych pay decreasing
-Psych practice settings are very diverse: state hospitals, VA, community mental health, private practice, academics, psychoanalysis, etc. Radiology only comes in two flavors: dark room in a hospital/clinic or your home
-You can also work from home in psychiatry with telepsychiatry
-Both can rely heavily on dictation software

 

[peppy]

If I were you, I think I'd go ahead with ranking Rads programs first and psych programs second as your solid "backup option" (since matching into rads isn't guaranteed anyway, it is not at all a bad thing to have a second choice of specialty you also really like). One of the reasons I say to go for Rads first is because it would be a lot easier for you to switch from Rads to psych than vice versa. A medical prelim year or transitional year can qualify for a PGY-1 in Psych, so you could match into Rads then after your internship look for PGY-2 spots in Psych next year if you decide you still like patient contact after a solid year of answering pages from nurses. 😉 An internship in psych does not transfer over to any other field to my knowledge, on the other hand.
If you do a transitional year you could hopefully even do more psych electives to confirm you still enjoy it in other settings.
Sometimes having a really good (or really bad) rotation in a subject can give you an impression about how much you like or dislike a field that doesn't hold up after you get more exposure to the field in general. While psych does have many positives, it also certainly has its share of negatives. For example, there are a certain portion of patients who you will see bouncing in and out of the psych hospital over and over, which can be discouraging for the sort of person who wants to feel like they've "cured" the patient. Sometimes psych patients can be very demanding and emotionally draining to deal with. During one of my med school rotations in psych, one of the residents had a therapy patient who committed suicide, which you can imagine caused a lot of guilt and distress for the resident. I'm not saying these are reasons not to go into psych (after all, I want to be a psychiatrist myself) but they are the kind of things that one needs to take into account in deciding if it's a field you will truly enjoy.
Another reason I say to continue with the rads plan for now is because I think it is extremely common to get cold feet about residency choice towards the end of the game. There must have been a reason why you put so much time and effort into working towards Rads. It might be good to have more time to think it over before making a last minute switch.
Good luck on the decision!

 

[GmailQueen]

I agree that switching into psych is easier than switching out of psych. On the interview trail, it seemed that a lot of great psych programs took PGY-2s every year (Yale, for example, adds 4 PGY-2s every year). I think it would be harder to find an open rads slot at a great program, so if you changed your mind, you'd have to probably go through the match again. And, as peppy stated, your intern year credits would carry over if you were switching into psych, but likely wouldn't if you were switching out of psych.

Out of curiosity, did you do more than one psych rotation? It sounds like you had a really fantastic rotation your first time around, but it might be a good idea to do another rotation at a different site. For example, I had a great clerkship on an adult inpatient unit so I then did a child psych elective to see if I still enjoyed psych in another context. Perhaps trying a different rotation (ie, C/L, child) would give you an idea of whether or not this was just a fluke based on your rotation.

 

[DJ1827]

Thanks so much for all of your responses. I am definitely doing one more psych rotation (med/psych) starting in just a couple weeks, so hopefully I'll have a better idea if this is a good fit for me. I did have an amazing time during my first psych rotation. I think this might be a reason why I am putting psych on such a pedestal. However, I don't think I've been exposed to enough of the negative/annoying/tedious/painful aspects of psych. Then again, it does happen to encompass everything I have ever truly been interested in, namely the mind-body relationship, and now that I realize this I'm afraid a rads residency (let alone career) where I would have to learn a lot of material I don't feel passionate about might be quite painful.

 

[DD214_DOC]

What is this psych imaging fellowship you speak of?

 

[Sneezing]

What is this psych imaging fellowship you speak of?

Vanderbilt has one that I'm aware of. I'm sure there are more out there too.
http://www.mc.vanderbilt.edu/root/vumc.php?site=psychiatry&doc=17128

Don't kid yourself rads has its frequent fliers, too. Think about what the ER will feed you on an hourly basis. CT scan this, CT scan that, CXR this, Back x-ray that for every drug seeking, unconcious addict, Dizzy elderly. And you'll know it too after first glance of the reason on the chart and initial look over of the study that you are pepetuating the Cover Your ***** medicine simply to put your name on the chart. Or on the other side of the spectrum every outpatient knee pain from obese patients. The cool images are starting to be siphoned off by the specialists. Cardiologists do their own reads and have their own scanners. Neurologists are starting to have their own neuroimaging fellowships. Ortho reads their own plain films (maybe MRI's too, I don't know). If CT colonography gets the evidence behind it, you can bet GI will be all over that fast.

Intervential Radiology is on the verge of becoming its own specialty and no longer a fellowship.

A revolving door patient in psych just means they are a more difficult case and a symptom of poor resources - both can be solved with a little elbow grease.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

I was just going to add that with a PhD in basic neuroanatomy, I was drawn toward rads too. The images, the technology... I didn't think I'd mind the dark rooms and limited range of human contact, but what sealed the deal for psych was the encyclopedic knowledge of pathology that it seemed that the rads had. I'm very much an intellectually lazy "big picture" kind of guy , and I decided I wasn't going to take well to the day-in/day-out nitpicky details. I could also see that there was going to be a lot of wading through CXRs, flat plates, ultrasounds, and barium enemas before I was going to be able to seek ditzels in high-res brain MRIs.

I agree with everything above. I have never regretted my specialty choice.

 

[whopper]

Both fields are very different in terms of the type of things you see on an everyday basis.

Psychiatry--sometimes the patients are smelly, violent, angry, needy etc. You need to listen to people's problems.

Radiology: you're stuck in a dark room, usually by yourself for several hours a day. You have to have more of a lab/pathological mindset about the cases you see.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Both fields are very different in terms of the type of things you see on an everyday basis.

Psychiatry--sometimes the patients are smelly, violent, angry, needy etc. You need to listen to people's problems.

Radiology: you're stuck in a dark room, usually by yourself for several hours a day. You have to have more of a lab/pathological mindset about the cases you see.

Yet both try to find out what's going on inside non-invasively.

 

[BobA]

Be practical. Do radiology. Your pre-lim year will allow to to tranfer if you want. Many programs can find a PGY2 spot of a quality applicant (from all those leaving early for Child). You won't know until you try it.

You can always transfer from Rads to psych, but it'd be tough to transfer from psych to rads.

 

[DJ1827]

Everyone, I really do appreciate your great feedback.

At this point, I don't think that an extra year in a medicine prelim/transitional will award me with any new information. Sure, it can buy me some time to think some more. However, I feel that I need to make a decision, otherwise I'm going to go crazy. I don't think it will be good for me to choose something with the intention of changing in the future. I think I just need to make a decision and go with it 100%. That said, now I know that if I change my mind later on, it's not the end of the world.

Right now, I know that I have a passion for the mind and figuring out how it works. I don't have a passion for radiology. Then again, I don't know how you could until your in the throws of it and start obtaining a knowledge base.

I think there are just a few things I need to figure out before I make this decision. I am hoping to get a bit more exposure to outpt psych, since i'm presuming this would be most of what i do after residency, and get a better feel for whether i could see myself doing this long term. Also, I'm hoping to talk to a few more psychiatrists and figure out how they make ends meet, and what the options for getting your loans repaid (please chyme in if you have thoughts on this...). I'd also like to talk to more radiologists who did or are considering psych and what led them to make their decisions (rads or psych...)

Lastly, I am surprised to see that in a psychiatry blog I've received responses recommending I choose radiology. This makes me think that I probably don't know what psychiatry, in reality/practice, is truly all about. To be honest, with either one, I feel like there's something I'm missing. Why is rads so much more competitive? Is it really just the money? Or is it the empowering feeling that you're making a diagnosis, solving a problem, without all the BS. Why is psych so undesirable? Is there too much BS? I can't understand how there aren't more people interested in the mind...

anyway, thanks again.

 

[Cknight]

Well, do Psych then! Unless you have an identical post in the Radiology forum, you probably came here to be persuaded into Psych. And if that's what your heart tells you to do, what more do you need? If you're stuck doing something you have no passion for, you will never make enough money to make it worthwhile.

 

[Psychotropic]

I am just a second year medical student, but I am close to someone in my family who is a psychiatrist in private practice. I have worked with this individual in the past, I am familiar with their practice and am also familiar with the practice/financial situation of some of his psych colleagues.

First thing is first, do what you are passionate about. Now, I'm sure you've heard that a million times. Down to the details: I understand that you are worried about paying off your loans (aren't we all). Psychiatrists have the potential to make a very good living. The private practice child-adolescent psychiatrist I know works 50 hours/week doing mostly med-checks and makes 350k/year practicing in a suburban setting. He loves his job. He has one colleague who I think is absolutely insane--works 70-80hours/week and makes well over 500k.

You can make good money in psychiatry, but it's not going to be as simple as it is in rads. Unlike rads, you are not going to be salaried at 350-400k. If you want a salaried position, or are interested in pursuing academics (research/teaching) you're going to have to be content with your typical 180k/year salary +/- 30k depending on location. Granted, a salaried position will come with less headaches regarding billing and will usually include some nice benefits.

Ultimately, If you want to make more money, avoid being tied down to a salaried position and just work more hours as a self-employed physician. Realistically, an average radiologist works about 50-60 hours a week. A private practice psychiatrist working 50-60 hours a week probably won't make as much as a radiologist will, but won't be too far off. Income in psychiatry tends to be less than other fields because docs in psych don't work the long hours docs in other fields work. Keep that in mind. Furthermore, what's great about psych, is if you decide to go the private practice route overhead is pretty low (no fancy medical equipment required). Malpractice also tends to be quite low. Even if you do decide to pursue a salaried position, since most jobs are 40 hours/week, this will leave you enough time to take call elsewhere for extra pay.

You will pay off your loans no matter which field you pick. Both fields offer you the opportunity to become financially successful. I know psychiatrists who are living in mansions, and I also know some living in tiny apartments. It's all about how hard you are willing to work and how you wish to structure your practice. The money really should not deter you from choosing psych.

If you are still thinking rads and you think a prelim/transitional year will help clear you make up your mind, then go rads. Otherwise, it sounds like you love psych and you are just looking for reasons not to go with your heart. Just do what you love and the money will follow.

 

[DrFrasierCrane]

Long time SDN reader and your conundrum finally gave me an excuse to register.

I’m nearing the end of my MS3 year and recently decided 100% on psych. Like you, psychiatry came out of the blue. I went into my third year very interested in Rads or IM and looked forward to the psych rotation only for the free weekends. Turns out psychiatry finally made me realize what all this “passion” nonsense was all about. I really WANTED to like rads but my heart wasn’t into it. Who wouldn’t want 400k to sit on his or her bum, use crazy cool technology and have other doctors hanging on your every word?

Why I like psych:
-Fascinating to me on both scientific and clinical levels
-Ability to make both immediate and long term impacts on patients and their families.
-I actually enjoyed studying the material, and I normally HATE studying.
-No day was ever the same, even if I saw the same patients.
-What other field lets you watch two disease processes interact: “the manic girl is trying to dance with the catatonic guy.”
-Great lifestyle, decent money
-I like talking to patients
-Variety: you can work in a psych hospital, a private practice, community clinic, C/L, etc. It’s flexible and you can change it up 10, 20, 30 yrs down the line.

Why I didn’t like rads:
-What’s going to motivate me to continue to read the never-ending pile of films 5-10 years down the road? I slack off when I’m not engaged and images can keep me interested for only so long. I mean even porn gets boring after a while, right?
-Similarly, the thought of finding a rare pathology does not get me excited. I won’t wake up in the morning and say “Oh boy I hope I find (insert rare disease here)!”
-I’ve already gained weight in med school, I don’t need to become vitamin D deficient as well.
-Only really interested in neuroimaging, and general anatomy isn’t that fascinating to me
-Little variety: wherever you work, it’ll be a dark room with just you and a computer.

That’s it for now, hope I helped. Just wanted to let you know you aren’t alone.

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Welcome to our happy band!

Long time SDN reader and your conundrum finally gave me an excuse to register.
...
-What other field lets you watch two disease processes interact: “the manic girl is trying to dance with the catatonic guy.”


...
-I’ve already gained weight in med school, I don’t need to become vitamin D deficient as well.
...

 

[whopper]

Yet both try to find out what's going on inside non-invasively.

True.

I think the big thing here that I would advise on a career choice is do you think the reality of the job goes hand in hand with what you want to do the rest of your life?

A problem here is several, unfortunately, do not know if the field is right for them until they've done some significant work in that field. I know of a psychiatrist who all her life wanted to be a pediatrician, got into a pediatrics residency and then ended up hating it. Her idea of prediatrics didn't match what was going on in reality.

Heck, isn't that the case with almost anyone who goes to medical school? You really don't know what it's like until you're in it for some time, and by then, it's too late (at least for many.)

My advice is try to find out what the fields are really like experientially and phenomenonologically (did I spell it right?). Make your decision on which field you would be happier in based that and your own personality.

 

[Abacab]

True.

I think the big thing here that I would advise on a career choice is do you think the reality of the job goes hand in hand with what you want to do the rest of your life?

A problem here is several, unfortunately, do not know if the field is right for them until they've done some significant work in that field. I know of a psychiatrist who all her life wanted to be a pediatrician, got into a pediatrics residency and then ended up hating it. Her idea of prediatrics didn't match what was going on in reality.

Heck, isn't that the case with almost anyone who goes to medical school? You really don't know what it's like until you're in it for some time, and by then, it's too late (at least for many.)

My advice is try to find out what the fields are really like experientially and phenomenonologically (did I spell it right?). Make your decision on which field you would be happier in based that and your own personality.

I usually just bite my tongue on these things...but since you asked, it's phenomenologically...just take that "on" out.

 

[subtilis]

wow, long long time since i've seen this site but just couldn't resist.

i'm a radiology resident, my girlfriend is finishing psychiatry this year. we're both at "top" programs.

my comments for sneezing: i think that each and every one of your comments, or at least the implied corrolaries are patently false or terribly misleading. with the exception of "both can rely heavily on dictation software." isn't there a word for this in psychiatry, "splitting?" anyway, i am not trying to attack you personally, but i think you would do well to develop a more well-rounded knowledge-base regarding an as ubiquitous field in medicine as radiology. some additional fluency in this regard will serve you well, at least my girlfriend is certainly appreciative of these insights i can share with her, which she finds very relevant to the care of her patients.

DJ1827: radiology and psych are both fantastic fields. in radiology, there's more to learn than i had any real concept of in med school, but once you start to learn it, and can then apply your knowledge, it's a lot of fun. i am more amazed and captivated by the human body each day. it's the first job i've had where i don't look at the clock. but there are obvious drawbacks that it seems like you have a decent sense of. on the other hand, i love discussing interesting patients and journal club articles with my girlfriend and her co-residents and i even go to some of her grand rounds. but i could never handle her daily grind.

if money's the only thing keeping you from psych, you should know that there are plenty of ways to make bank as a psychiatrist. i would urge you to go with your gut, and urge your gut to be heavily-suaded by your day-to-day experiences in each field, as previous posters have also alluded to. gather as many of those real-life, day-to-day experiences, and the answer will quickly become clear.

 

[Sneezing]

I don't think it is splitting if that was my goal and intention. I do believe psychiatry > radiology. My comments still stand. We agree to disagree. I would be interested in some of your anecdotal stories as to why I am wrong on some of my points though.

 

[whopper]

phenomenologically

I think my overreliance on microsoft word and medical training have made me a very bad speller!

Medical training just happened to push a lot of data out of my head and replaced it with medical data.

Before medical school, you named the country in Europe and the year, and I could tell you what was going on--e.g. France 1770-80s--the Rococo art movement was in full swing.

After medical school, bada bing, ---fuhget about it (as they say in NJ).

 

[gman33]

It sounds like you really liked the doctor/patient interactions in psych. Obviously you will have next to none of this in rads.

What are the reasons you like rads?
Try to think about what you will be doing day in and day out.
Which job will give you more satisfaction. Mainly, which one will you find more enjoyable on a daily basis.

I left behind a previous career in a well paying field. I just didn't like doing the work anymore. Nothing bad about where I worked or anything like that, but it just made my days miserable, which translated over to my outside of work life. Just ask my wife.

If paying back loans are your biggest concern, maybe think about this.
Going into rads, you will probably end up doing a fellowship. That's two extra years of training vs. general psych. Live like a resident for those two years, and you could pay off a very large chunk of your debt. Sure, you will probably never make the bank in psych that you could in rads (unless things change, which they might), but you can still live a very comfortable lifestyle.

If you are still on the fence at the last minute, I'd go with rads and try to explore your options in the first year. It sounds like you are a very competitive applicant and as such you probably wouldn't have much trouble switching into psych. Going the other way, that's a bigger obstacle.

 

[igottaquestion]

The following is a post in response to this question from a website frequented by radiologists (Aunt Minnie). How accurately does the post portray psychiatry?


"One.

50% of $350,000 to $400,000K after a PGY6 to PGY7 year is $175,000 to $200,000 K after taxes.
30% of $180,000 to $250,000K after a PGY4 year is $136,000 to $175,000K after taxes. Money is not much difference.

The 50% tax brackout makes a BIG DIFFERENCE.

Two

the malpractice rates in radiology is second only to Obstetrics. The malpractice rates in Psych is at the bottom with Allergy.

Three

In Psych most practices have 52 weeks of weekends and nights off. In radiology, you will cover night shifts and weekends (just like the ER). Quality of life in Psychiatry is much higher.

Four

Psych residency is one of the easiest. Not much reading. Radiology reading is TOUGH. You will read books the size of Robbins Book of Pathology for 10 different rotations. All radiology residents read all of the time

Five

Job market is wide open in Psychiatry. You can live in Miami, NYC, San Diego, San Fran you name it without a fellowship.
In radiology, if you want to break into a popular city you will have to do one or two fellowships. The large cities are saturated.

Six

The day to day work of radiology is stressful due to the volume. You will read 150 to 200 high end studies such as CTs and MRIs a day. In psych, you have the time to think about problems and write notes.

Seven

Psychiatrists have slightly better respect among people than radiologists. Physicians and medical students give radiology more respect. But people outside of medicine don't even consider radiologist a physician (instead a 4 year college degree technician)

Eight

Psychatrist salary will go up with the healthcare reform. Radiology salary will go down.

Conclusion.

1. Money - Radiology hands down (but not much due to 50% tax bracket)
2. Lifestyle - Psychiatry hands down.
3. Quality of Life - Psychiatry hands down. One of the lowest liability professions vs the 2nd highest.
4. Prestige - overall equal. Depends if it is a physician or layperson.
5. Stress - Psychiatry hands down. Time to think about the problem. Thinking nonstop all day vs listening to patients complain all day. Still, chances of you missing something and being sued is much less in Psych.
6. Fulfillment - only you can answer this one. Do you like patients or not?
7. Jobs - Psychiatry hands down. You can live in any popular city after residency.
8. Vacation/Free time - TIE. Radiologists have a lot of vacation but you will work weekends. In Psychiatry you have weekends off so at the end of the year it ends up being a tie.
9. Future Prospects - Imaging is #1 target by politicians due to it being the highest expenditure of healthcare costs. As you know politicians are trying to cut healthcare costs. Radiology and Cardiology will continue to have a huge bullseye for the next 10-20 years.
10. Medical school relevance - slight edge to radiology. Medical school does nothing to prepare you for both fields. They are both on the outside.
11. Residency training - Psych is one of the easiest residencies (easier than Derm because it requires much less reading). Radiology is one of the toughest (every month is a new subject with new material. You will easily read 30+ more medical books in radiology compared to Psych). Radiology gets tougher each residency year. Psych gets easier. Most PGY4 psych residents have zero call. Most PGY5 radiology residents will do overnigh call (via nightfloat or traditional) the whole year because board exams are being moved to after residency.
12. Lifelong reading - Radiology will means learning new images and techniques for the rest of your life. Attendings of twenty years ago had to learn MRI and PET by themselve without an attending with MR expertise. A lot of self learning is involved for the rest of your life. Psych has less continual learning. Depression, Bipolar, Schizophrenia.

Bottomline: Do what gives you internal fulfillment. If it is truly a tie. I would pick lifestyle, low malpractice, less stress, free weekends, free nights over money. Especially since the 50% tax bracket will kill your gross salary. "

 

[OldPsychDoc]

Interesting perspective--I'd only add that it overestimates the "public prestige" factor in psych (confusion about "4 year tech vs rad" is more than matched by the constant "psychiatrist? psychologist? real doctor?" questions I have to field on a daily basis) and that it underestimates the continually upgrading knowledge base for psych, given our constantly expanding pharmacopeia.

I would never dispute that rads have to know a heckuva lot more medicine than I do. I found the encyclopedic knowledge of pathology in rads positively daunting!

 

[michaelrack]

"50% of $350,000 to $400,000K after a PGY6 to PGY7 year is $175,000 to $200,000 K after taxes.
30% of $180,000 to $250,000K after a PGY4 year is $136,000 to $175,000K after taxes. Money is not much difference."

You seem to be unclear on the concept of MARGINAL tax brackets.

Here are the federal brackets for 2010:


10% on the income between $0 and $16,750
15% on the income between $16,750 and $68,000; plus $1,675
25% on the income between $68,000 and $137,300; plus $9,362.50
28% on the income between $137,300 and $209,250; plus $26,687.50
33% on the income between $209,250 and $373,650; plus $46,833.50
35% on the income over $373,650; plus $101,085.50



Assume a married radiologist makes $373, 650 and his wife doesn't work. He will pay 101,085.50 in federal taxes, and in round figures will take home $270,000 after taxes.

Assume a married psychiatrist makes $209,250 and his wife doesn't work. He will pay 46,833.50 in federal taxes and take home $162,000 in round figures.

That's a big difference. Of course, this example ignores state taxes and deductions.

The point I am trying to make is that you can't apply the marginal tax rate to the entire income to determine take-home pay.

 

[Sneezing]

I still think the salaries are comparable.

Psych is 180+/-30 for an average of 40+/-5 hours of work.
Rads is 350+/-30 for an average of 60+/-5 hours of work.

Imagine what a psychiatrist could do if they worked those 60 or 80 weeks? Plus, if it is a private practice psychiatrist there is a greater chance for preserving normal sleep hours if they did work more.

Psych can still get sleep and make money if one so chooses.

 

[Abacab]

Seven

Psychiatrists have slightly better respect among people than radiologists. Physicians and medical students give radiology more respect. But people outside of medicine don't even consider radiologist a physician (instead a 4 year college degree technician)

"

I've found that plenty of people are aware of the radiologist's training and qualifications. I would argue that the average person isn't aware that a psychiatrist is a medical doctor. I've even had medical colleagues who accidentally referred to me as a psychologist. People call me "shrink" all the time. Frankly, whether it's among lay-people or medical professionals, I don't think psychiatry holds much prestige. You can't go into this field to stroke your ego.

 

[Fermata]

There are tons of people that when finding out you do something related to the health profession will tell you that they have a niece that's training to be a radiologist.

Upon further questioning they are going to a tech school to become a rad tech.

Honestly, I think the general population has equally poor insight into what both radiologists and psychiatrists do every day.

To paraphrase something I've heard many times: you get the opportunity to choose between many good choices. Be honest with what you want. Choosing between psych and rads is a fantastic thing with which to be burdened.

 

[psychotrope]

I still think the salaries are comparable.

Psych is 180+/-30 for an average of 40+/-5 hours of work.
Rads is 350+/-30 for an average of 60+/-5 hours of work. QUOTE]

the salaries are *not* comparable. Radiologists have, in some ways, even better schedules than psychs and certainly dont work on average 20 more hours per week.

Also, we are biased. Post this message on a radiology board about salaries being comparable and they will laugh at the very thought......I wouldnt want to do radiology if someone gave me 5 million dollars to do it, but rads and psych are in a completely different ballgame as far as salary goes.

 

[peppy]

Imagine what a psychiatrist could do if they worked those 60 or 80 weeks?

While technically possible, I think there is a good reason why most psychiatrists don't work long hours. I think for most people, listening to other people's emotional distress, dealing with personality disorders/manipulative behavior/etc. is more draining than sitting in a room by yourself looking at images. I think many people would find it hard to maintain the necessary patience and empathy for 80 hours a week. You need time to recharge to be able to take care of other people.

 

[SomeDoc]

OP, any update on your decision?