Radiology as first rotation?

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radiologygirl

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I will be starting third year in 3 weeks with a four week rotation in either pathology/radiology/radiation oncology.
Should I snap up this opportunity to start of with radiology or should I wait to do it later on when I am more settled in?
 
I would say radiology would be great as a first rotation. You get to learn how to read all of those chest xrays, CT and MRI's before you hit the floors. I think that would be very advantagous when on IM rounds.

On the other hand, Radiation Oncology I think would be a bad idea as a first rotation. It's very interdisciplinary and it would help (and you will get more out of it) if you have already been exposed to things like ENT, ob/gyn, urology and pulm medicine and, of course, already are somewhat familiar with CT's, MRIs and xrays... save Rad Onc till 4th year, beside, most places i think prefer 4th years.

As for Path, I think you could do that first as well. It would be a good rotation to do, since it's not as dependent on anything else... It would be good to know what CA 27-29 is and how SLE has a rim pattern under the scope... the latter will be on boards anyway.


radiologygirl said:
I will be starting third year in 3 weeks with a four week rotation in either pathology/radiology/radiation oncology.
Should I snap up this opportunity to start of with radiology or should I wait to do it later on when I am more settled in?
 
radiologygirl said:
I will be starting third year in 3 weeks with a four week rotation in either pathology/radiology/radiation oncology.
Should I snap up this opportunity to start of with radiology or should I wait to do it later on when I am more settled in?

I, personally, would save my radiology elective until after I had a decent amount of patient exposure.