Rad Onc vs Ophthal

[Techmonkey]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Both seem to be very visual fields with elements of both medicine and high tech surgery/therapy. Both have an element of continuity of care and the right amount of patient contact although ophth has the advantage of not having to rely on referrals or having to liase with multidisciplinary teams. Lifestyle and compensation-wise they both seem to have decent hours with low night calls and good compensation.

Has anyone been in a position to decide between the two and what made you choose one over the other?

 

[napoleondynamite]

I seriously considered Ophtho when I was a 3rd year, and did a rotation in it. Ophtho is an awesome field, but two things swayed me irreversibly toward radonc:

1) In Ophtho you essentially hang up the stethoscope and become an eye dentist. Very specialized, which is good and bad. Good because you get a lot of depth in just one area, bad because I felt that I would be wasting a lot of my education. Anyone who specializes is in this predicament to some extent..and radonc is definitely not immune either. I just felt that there was enough medicine and breadth in radonc to keep life a little more interesting.

2) The chance to be in a career that offers life-saving treatment. This is a big part of what makes radonc so fulfilling and worthwhile to me. Ophtho is pretty damn cool & provides a very life-altering service..but not lifeSAVING.

My two cents. Both excellent fields though.

 

[saiyagirl]

i've done rotations in both and considered pursuing both.

i did enjoy rad onc for many of the reasons the above poster mentioned (you still do a lot of physicals, different parts of the body, life saving reatment, and nice flexibility/lifestyle, etc). The thing that ultimately drove me away from it was that i didn't feel rad onc docs ever diagnosed anything. patients came from another doctor with a diagnosis, and it was up to the rad onc docs to decide what kind of treatment was necessary. (physicists decided how to treat, and radiation therapists delivered the goods).

once in awhile the docs would diagnose some complications of treatment (radiation-induced esophagitis, or dermatitis, etc), but i felt that was pretty much it.

after rotating through radiology (lots of diagnosing, little treating), and rad onc (little diagnosing, lots of treating - no wonder the two fields used to be one in the past!) i decided i wanted to be in a specialty that required a great deal of both diagnostic and therapeutic skill....i eventually rotated in ophthalmology and decided to go for it.

 

[radonc]

i find it really funny how someone could be considering optho, radonc, and rads...they couldnt be any more different from each other...

 

[stephew]

well i dont think so really. I think radonc and ophtho have similarities as described above; rads is quite different however. but the appealing things people see in specialities are not always apparent on first or inexpert glance. i know lots of people attacted to both surgery and psychiatry and i can't think of any two things that seem more different on the outset.