Rad residents EXTREMELY negative during shadowing

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SusGob711 said:
Well I just finished my second day and needless to say...it was actually worse. I'm so concerned about said resident I almost want to talk to his attending. He's going on and on about how much easier his life would be if his patients would just have the courtesy to die. I also caught several colorful swear words (which isn't so bad by itself) and what I thought to be a racial slur. He was also blatantly disrespectful to collaborative department techs, etc.

Anyways, I took the time to talk to several attendings and they definately allayed my fears. He said residency sucks for everyone and that in fact the residents didn't know how good they have it. And to the 'bad day excuse' posters...I would NEVER talk someone out of doing pre-med just because it sucks sometimes--no matter how bad of a day I am having...
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You might not do it but someone else might. Also until you are in their situation day in and day out, you can't assume what you would do in their shoes.
 
SusGob711 said:
The two rad residents I was placed with systematically broke my spirit, haha. They went on and on and on about all that is wrong with medicine and how ANY career would be better. To be honest, I was really disappointed and disheartened by their bitterness. The attendings I hung around seemed to be pretty content and actually happy with their jobs--I'm not sure whether to take them seriously or laugh them off. No doubt medicine has flaws but this was the first day, actually the first twenty minutes, we were introduced. I know residency wasn't built out of candy canes and popsicles but seriously?? 😕
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I understand your concern and perhaps the residents should have chosen a better time to air their complaints, however, I've worked at several companies (as white collar labor) and that's pretty much what coworkers do amongst themselves. If you ever work for yourself and/or work for a boss you truly enjoy working for in a line of work you take equal joy in, you're really fortunate.

I think it's actually stress relief to complain about office politics. I say this and laugh because in 12 hours, I'll be doing the same thing.
 
deuce924 said:
You might not do it but someone else might. Also until you are in their situation day in and day out, you can't assume what you would do in their shoes.
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Things I would not do = wish my patients would die so I could go home.

I can understand something like wishing a prego would dump out the baby a bit quicker, but that's a far cry from "god, I wish the loser in room 19 would just die already...the Academy Awards are on tonight!"
 
teenmachinery1 said:
I find there is a great deal of cynicism in medicine. It is probably not going to be worth it 😀
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there's a great deal of cynicism in almost every profession.

It's funny because in college, you're an idealist about how you can't wait to start working, earning money, not being a perpetually poor college student, etc., but every single young professional I know would love to go back to college. And, nothing against them, but not all of them were necessarily great students that loved school or were book nerds.

All those same people pretty much gripe about co-workers and their jobs in the after hours. but, realize it's just stress relief. At the end of the day, most people are appreciative to have a job than the alternative. one of the senior, senior people at my company struck up conversation with me today about how many people are looking for work right now.

so, people complain, but I can almost guarantee those residents or most workers wouldn't drop what they're doing and try something new.
 
morning said:
Things I would not do = wish my patients would die so I could go home.

I can understand something like wishing a prego would dump out the baby a bit quicker, but that's a far cry from "god, I wish the loser in room 19 would just die already...the Academy Awards are on tonight!"
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Folks get pretty jaded during residency. You will have many patients where the question isn't "if" the patient will die during this hospital admission, but "when". Usually you won't be hoping they will "die already" though, because there is paperwork involved -- you will be hoping they die after your shift. There is a ton of gallows humor in medicine, and you see things like life and death in a very different light. Read House of God and you will get some of the flavor -- that's fictional, sort of, but there is a lot of insight into internship in there which still applies today.
 
morning said:
Things I would not do = wish my patients would die so I could go home.

I can understand something like wishing a prego would dump out the baby a bit quicker, but that's a far cry from "god, I wish the loser in room 19 would just die already...the Academy Awards are on tonight!"
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Don't be so quick to pass out judgment. You don't know what the context was. I doubt it's because they want to get home early. I've heard a decent number of residents and attendings say the same thing. It always seemed to come out due to frustrations that the patient is suffering unnecessarily for almost no benefit in addition to wasting time and resources (ie. ICU space).

OP, maybe the residents are going through a miserable rotation or something. If it makes you feel better, I can count on one hand how many residents/attendings actually encouraged me to go into medicine; the vast majority have told me to do everything possible to figure out if I like anything else more than medicine.
 
SusGob711 said:
I wish I was making this up--that's why I am so surprised by what I found at this hospital. But keep in mind that EVERY specialty has it's negatives and EVERY specialty has those people that make everyone else miserable. Btw...these residents work ~8AM-4:30PM. I think the attendings work more than they do, lol.
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Ha, I was going to say, the rads residents I met on my rotation were a little quirky, but they were a LOT happier than the residents I met on just about every other rotation. Seriously, it's too bad rads is so boring....

I think you just got unlucky with these residents. Maybe they hate their lives in general, or maybe they just don't want to deal with you and they're trying to get you to go away. Either way, since you're having a bad experience, you don't have to keep doing it. Why are you shadowing radiologists anyway? That's not the kind of EC you need for your med school application. You should shadow some clinicians who directly work with patients. Go shadow in an ED or an outpatient clinic or something like that so you can get some patient contact.
 
No. I think I would stick with firefighting.
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I'm scared.

I was considering firefighting too... and now this from an EM doc 🙁

Oh, wait, there's always psychiatry! 😀
 
MegaProjectile said:
I thought premeds took everything Law2doc says as gospel truth. Source? Data? :laugh:
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I'm no pre-med, and I worked with a very large private practice group of diagnostic radiologists last month, and 60 hours was not part of their vocabulary. I don't know what other places do, so I asked him to back up his claims.
 
Law2Doc said:
Well, you can look at the 2003 JAMA article table which pegs radiology average hours at 58, and an AJR article by Sunshine et al which says average hours went up by 5 hours since then. See http://www.medfriends.org/specialty_hours_worked.htm
http://www.ajronline.org/cgi/content/abstract/193/4/1136
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In 2007, the 25th percentile of weekly hours was 45, and the 75th percentile was 55. The 25th percentile of annual vacation days was 25, and the 75th percentile was 50. Full-time radiologists responding about their own weekly hours reported, at the mean, working 10% more hours than they believed was the average for other full-time radiologists in the practice.

CONCLUSION. Weekly hours and annual vacation days both have increased. The percentiles give radiologists a basis for comparison with other radiologists. Radiologists apparently often overestimate their work hours relative to the hours of others in their practices. Misperceptions of this kind might give rise to friction in radiology practices.
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Your Sunshine article was not adding that 5 hours to 58 hours.

So the radiologist working at the 75th percentile is working 55 hours, and he think he's working 10% more than the other guys in his practice. If the 25th percentile is 45 hours, and the 75th percentile is 55 hours, the guy in the middle is working 50 hours a week, which is about what I saw (7:30am to 5:30pm x 5 days).
 
basupran said:
I agree with this statement. Most docs don't know what it's like to pull engines in 100 degree weather and then have customers come in and bitch about the labor costs. Most docs don't know what it's like to get into work at 9am on a Monday and start counting the hours till Friday rolls around. I took a lot of time off before med school (worked odd jobs ie mechanic and held careers as well) and found med school to be infinitely more interesting. While working my first career, I felt as if I knew everything about my job within one year- it was very un-fulfilling. Every single day was the same thing over and over and over again. Medicine on the other hand, no two days have been the same.
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Yeah, time off from school is really important IMO. I am working a job right now that is awful in so many ways (I won't go into details). The reason I want to go into medicine is so that my job doesn't feel like I'm selling my time. Time is so precious, I'd rather spend it doing a job that's meaningful and interesting, even if it means I have to work really hard.
 
morning said:
Things I would not do = wish my patients would die so I could go home.

I can understand something like wishing a prego would dump out the baby a bit quicker, but that's a far cry from "god, I wish the loser in room 19 would just die already...the Academy Awards are on tonight!"
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Watch (not too) carefully, and you'll eventually see arguments break out over which service a patient was under when they died. You might also get to hear general surgeons refer to their jobs as "operating on dead people."
 
TheProwler said:
Your Sunshine article was not adding that 5 hours to 58 hours.

So the radiologist working at the 75th percentile is working 55 hours, and he think he's working 10% more than the other guys in his practice. If the 25th percentile is 45 hours, and the 75th percentile is 55 hours, the guy in the middle is working 50 hours a week, which is about what I saw (7:30am to 5:30pm x 5 days).
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First, I am agreeing with you, but I do have a question about these reported hours.

Weekly hours seems pretty misleading to me when it comes to radiologists. What are the annual hours?

The private practice rads I know take 14 weeks vacation per year. So 58 (or 55) or even 60 hours per week for the weeks actually worked sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me when you are taking off on average more than a week per month...I would love to see the annual compensation of a radiologist broken down by actual hours worked.

FWIW, I don't personally think I could stand to do their job - I shadowed a couple of these folks, and it is highly repetitive and isolated work, and when they are on the job, they are busy as hell without a minute to spare.
 
fahimaz7 said:
Lol.. is this a troll? I've never met an unhappy diagnostic radiologist resident. They have super easy hours, and will have cushy jobs awaiting them in just a few short years.

Oh noes, I have to sit in the dark all day (by that I mean 8-4 4d/wk), and count my money.
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I don't think this is necessarily true...My dad was a radiologist just finishing up his residency when I was born, and I can tell you I hardly saw him until I was about 16. Granted, he loves his job, and he also likes money, and the more you work, the more you get paid....but I would say that most radiologists go in to work rather early (otherwise cases build up and you are in a hole before you get there), and work way more than 4 days a week. I know that radiology is cushier than other specialties, but it is not as easy as that by a long shot.
 
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rmadell said:
I don't think this is necessarily true...My dad was a radiologist just finishing up his residency when I was born, and I can tell you I hardly saw him until I was about 16. Granted, he loves his job, and he also likes money, and the more you work, the more you get paid....but I would say that most radiologists go in to work rather early (otherwise cases build up and you are in a hole before you get there), and work way more than 4 days a week. I know that radiology is cushier than other specialties, but it is not as easy as that by a long shot.
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So let me get this right, Back in 1985, before the hour changes and before digital MRI and CT were being used 🙂)), your dad worked long hours in his residency? No kidding.

Ask your dad how many weeks of vacation he gets, then average his hours/week in a year. It's astounding at how many hours they "work on average".
 
SusGob711 said:
Well I just finished my second day and needless to say...it was actually worse. I'm so concerned about said resident I almost want to talk to his attending. He's going on and on about how much easier his life would be if his patients would just have the courtesy to die. I also caught several colorful swear words (which isn't so bad by itself) and what I thought to be a racial slur. He was also blatantly disrespectful to collaborative department techs, etc.

Anyways, I took the time to talk to several attendings and they definately allayed my fears. He said residency sucks for everyone and that in fact the residents didn't know how good they have it. And to the 'bad day excuse' posters...I would NEVER talk someone out of doing pre-med just because it sucks sometimes--no matter how bad of a day I am having...
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I'm sorry about the bad experience you are having with shadowing. On the bright side, I think it's good that the residents are not sugar coating their perspective (be it skewed or not). You'll run into all kinds of people in medicine and I would take this as a good experience in learning how to deal with them. A good lesson in how to not let other's negativity affect you.

Question - how did you land this opp to shadow in rads? I think it's really cool cause you get to interact with both the attending and residents. Do you run into med students on rotations also? Any tips for moi are much appreciated!
 
flip26 said:
...

The private practice rads I know take 14 weeks vacation per year. ...
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The folks you know are outliers. I know many radiologists and the norm is about a third of this. If you worked in a partnership, no way your partners would be okay with each earner being away from the images for this long; that means they are foregoing tons of income as a partner, and in the days of tight margins on reimbursements, this doesn't fly. Sure you may meet some semi-retired type who takes a lot of time off, but don't kid yourself that this is typical.

I think folks in pre-allo get carried away with how "lifestyle" the lifestyle fields are. You will work hard even in the ROAD specialties. You probably will work 60+ hours with 4 weeks of vacation tops in the early years, and then maybe if you are lucky you can leverage younger people and work fewer hours later on. And that's a big maybe as the insurance industry and government are doing their best to slash the profit margin per hour in fields like this, forcing folks to work harder to earn the same as what they got last year. You will work hard in medicine, even in rads. You will not be taking 14 weeks of vacation a year. Sorry, but you are kidding yourself.
 
Law2Doc said:
The folks you know are outliers. I know many radiologists and the norm is about a third of this. If you worked in a partnership, no way your partners would be okay with each earner being away from the images for this long; that means they are foregoing tons of income as a partner, and in the days of tight margins on reimbursements, this doesn't fly. Sure you may meet some semi-retired type who takes a lot of time off, but don't kid yourself that this is typical.

I think folks in pre-allo get carried away with how "lifestyle" the lifestyle fields are. You will work hard even in the ROAD specialties. You probably will work 60+ hours with 4 weeks of vacation tops in the early years, and then maybe if you are lucky you can leverage younger people and work fewer hours later on. And that's a big maybe as the insurance industry and government are doing their best to slash the profit margin per hour in fields like this, forcing folks to work harder to earn the same as what they got last year. You will work hard in medicine, even in rads. You will not be taking 14 weeks of vacation a year. Sorry, but you are kidding yourself.
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He said the private practice guys that he knows, and you countered with the radiologists that you know, and your conclusion is that he is "kidding" himself rather than acknowledging variation in the field. Your article didn't say what you claimed it said, and it also noted that the average radiologist surveyed thinks he works 10% more than the average in his group. Either it was only the overworked guys responding, or everyone was overestimating the amount that they work. Either way, it calls their averages into question.
 
Law2Doc said:
The folks you know are outliers. I know many radiologists and the norm is about a third of this. If you worked in a partnership, no way your partners would be okay with each earner being away from the images for this long; that means they are foregoing tons of income as a partner, and in the days of tight margins on reimbursements, this doesn't fly. Sure you may meet some semi-retired type who takes a lot of time off, but don't kid yourself that this is typical.

I think folks in pre-allo get carried away with how "lifestyle" the lifestyle fields are. You will work hard even in the ROAD specialties. You probably will work 60+ hours with 4 weeks of vacation tops in the early years, and then maybe if you are lucky you can leverage younger people and work fewer hours later on. And that's a big maybe as the insurance industry and government are doing their best to slash the profit margin per hour in fields like this, forcing folks to work harder to earn the same as what they got last year. You will work hard in medicine, even in rads. You will not be taking 14 weeks of vacation a year. Sorry, but you are kidding yourself.
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Are we talking about radiologist in general, in academia, just out of residency, private practice, or all of the above? In all honesty, the radiologists that I know (just out of residency) in private practice, are >12 weeks of vacation/year, in the first year. The most recent one had 12 weeks his first year, and he's at 16 weeks in his third year in practice.

Academic radiologists also make $250-300k/year... Private guys make that in 6 months, working half the hours.

At my father-in-laws practice, he has 2 new partners (they just made partner and were fresh out of training when they joined 3 years ago), and they are always traveling around the globe, enjoying their vacation (16wks/year). At his practice of 12 partners and 2 non-partnered radiologists, the normal days/year worked is 180, with some people working 250 and others working 150. Why do they work so much more? Because they like their $1,500,000 house in the mountains, as well as their $2,000,000 house in the city that they live in.

Comparing private radiologists to academia is not a fair comparison. The money isn't the same, the work isn't the same (private rads read so many more images/day than anyone I've seen in academia), and the hours aren't the same. Even the personalities are different...
 
TheProwler said:
He said the private practice guys that he knows, and you countered with the radiologists that you know, and your conclusion is that he is "kidding" himself rather than acknowledging variation in the field. Your article didn't say what you claimed it said, and it also noted that the average radiologist surveyed thinks he works 10% more than the average in his group. Either it was only the overworked guys responding, or everyone was overestimating the amount that they work. Either way, it calls their averages into question.
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There are other articles that suggest closer to the 60 hour average, I'm just too lazy to dig them up them. Reimbursements got tighter after the JAMA article date and folks started working more hours to continue to earn similar salaries, not fewer.

As for having to counter a suggestion that the norm for a specialty is to take off 14 weeks of vacation, I'll let you decide if that actually seems plausible or common.🙄
 
Law2Doc said:
There are other articles that suggest closer to the 60 hour average, I'm just too lazy to dig them up them. Reimbursements got tighter after the JAMA article date and folks started working more hours to continue to earn similar salaries, not fewer.

As for having to counter a suggestion that the norm for a specialty is to take off 14 weeks of vacation, I'll let you decide if that actually seems plausible or common.🙄
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flip26 neither suggested it was plausible nor common, simply what one particular practice had. I know a general surgery practice that give 8 weeks of vacation, in a notoriously time-consuming specialty. I'm going into surgery with the idea that I will be working early and often without a whole lot of vacation time, but there are still some cake jobs out there.
 
fahimaz7 said:
In all honesty, the radiologists that I know (just out of residency) in private practice, are >12 weeks of vacation/year, in the first year. The most recent one had 12 weeks his first year, and he's at 16 weeks in his third year in practice.
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Sounds exactly like the radiologists I shadowed.

TheProwler said:
flip26 neither suggested it was plausible nor common, simply what one particular practice had. I know a general surgery practice that give 8 weeks of vacation, in a notoriously time-consuming specialty. I'm going into surgery with the idea that I will be working early and often without a whole lot of vacation time, but there are still some cake jobs out there.
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Exactly. I don't know how common it is, but with what fahimaz has posted, we got n=2 on this thread.
 
OpalOnyx said:
Question - how did you land this opp to shadow in rads? I think it's really cool cause you get to interact with both the attending and residents. Do you run into med students on rotations also? Any tips for moi are much appreciated!
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I actually know a nurse in radiology who knew the head of the radiology residency program. Since it is a teaching hospital there are naturally residents as well as attendings. It's actually been really awesome because when the resident I was shadowing got stuck on the fourth upper GI x-ray study in a row I could pop over to observe an interventional attending and watch some procedures.

It's been a nice mix of diagnostic and interventional along with the residents (one was on a mams rotation, the other on flouro). My advice would be to pick your teaching hospital of choice and get a call into the residency director. Seeing both the 'before and after' of medical training has been incredibly insightful.
 
Well not to keep giving the play-by-play, lol, but it seems I'll manage just fine the rest of the week. I've found that when I can avoid this particular resident all is well. Like I mentioned, the attendings seem content--they have ALL encouraged me to go into medicine.

While I'm trying to not disregard the residents I think if I talked to them again as attendings they would have a whole different outlook. There is a lot to hate about medicine but like the rad attending told me..."If you've thought about it and still can't come up with even a close second, you're on the right track. Everything else will fall into place on its own."
 
SusGob711 said:
a row I could pop over to observe an interventional attending and watch some procedures.

It's been a nice mix of diagnostic and interventional along with the residents (one was on a mams rotation, the other on flouro).
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You were in the sterile field? If so, cherish the opportunity. I slide into a few surgeries (private hospitals) before I applied, and looking back on it, I was really fortunate to have the experience and not get busted. At our teaching hospital, anyone that ventures into a "sterile room" (three tiered system here with 2 of those requiring an asepsis class) has to have completed the asepsis class before they can do it.

IR rads is a neat field. If you get to sit in on a neuro IR procedure, you'll look back on it when you take anatomy and be amazed. I still can't imagine navigating my way from the femoral artery to the circle of willis.
 
fahimaz7 said:
Comparing private radiologists to academia is not a fair comparison. The money isn't the same, the work isn't the same (private rads read so many more images/day than anyone I've seen in academia), and the hours aren't the same. Even the personalities are different...
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What would be the advantages of academic radiology? More pathology? Better support teams? More patient interactions? Faculty track?

😕
 
Morsetlis said:
What would be the advantages of academic radiology? More pathology? Better support teams? More patient interactions? Faculty track?

😕
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In our state, it's all about the retirement package and the slow speed of work. For every year that's worked, you are guaranteed 2% of your income for the rest of your life. So, after 25 years, you'll get a nice 150,000/year for sitting at home.
 
fahimaz7 said:
In our state, it's all about the retirement package and the slow speed of work. For every year that's worked, you are guaranteed 2% of your income for the rest of your life. So, after 25 years, you'll get a nice 150,000/year for sitting at home.
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Not sure I would count on any state upholding its end of this sort of bargain.

Better to make your own money and fund your own retirement...that is what I hope to do.
 
It's the same retirement package that all the teachers (pre and post secondary).
 
fahimaz7 said:
Are we talking about radiologist in general, in academia, just out of residency, private practice, or all of the above? In all honesty, the radiologists that I know (just out of residency) in private practice, are >12 weeks of vacation/year, in the first year. The most recent one had 12 weeks his first year, and he's at 16 weeks in his third year in practice.
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One of my brothers is a full partner radiologist in a busy practice. He currently gets 9 weeks of vacation a year. This sounds nice, but his practice also staffs multiple sites around the clock. When he's on vacation he's gone, but when he's not he works days, he works nights, he works weekends, usually 12 hour shifts a pop. It adds up.

I won't get nearly 9 weeks when I start my partnership-track pathology job in July, but the group rotates home call for nights and weekends. I can say with certainty that the number of hours I work per year will not even approach my brother despite the vacation gap. I won't make as much money, either, but it's all about priorities.
 
fahimaz7 said:
You were in the sterile field? If so, cherish the opportunity.QUOTE]

Actually most of the procedures weren't performed in a sterile field. I.e. biopsies were done in CT. Picc line placement was done in an OR and I had to watch from an observational deck via a live x-ray feed. He also did an angiogram in an x-ray room. IR is pretty awesome though 😉
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VoiceofReason said:
lol "no doubt medicine has its flaws" you have no idea what you're in for
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I am disheartened by how much I hear this. I kept telling this resident that if I could think of anything else to do, I would. I'm sure I will be disappointed about certain aspects of medicine but surely I won't be as miserable as everyone lets on? 🙁
 
SusGob711 said:
I am disheartened by how much I hear this. I kept telling this resident that if I could think of anything else to do, I would. I'm sure I will be disappointed about certain aspects of medicine but surely I won't be as miserable as everyone lets on? 🙁
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You'll be miserable if you focus on the long hours (80-90/week) and the lack of pay (40k/year).
 
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