Radiology Elective - 3rd Year

[studyingforever]

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I have no interest in going into Radiology, but I need to be more comfortable with reading films as I'm not very good at it right now. Is it better to put this elective off until completion of cores? I would have had IM, Psych and OB/Gyn complete by the time I take this elective as a 3rd year student.

Thanks

 

[kdburton]

I have no interest in going into Radiology, but I need to be more comfortable with reading films as I'm not very good at it right now. Is it better to put this elective off until completion of cores? I would have had IM, Psych and OB/Gyn complete by the time I take this elective as a 3rd year student.

Thanks

I did a radiology elective in the 2nd month of third year and I don't regret it one bit. The radiologist I worked with primarily read chest, abdomen and pelvic CTs as well as some plain films for MSK complaints. There were other people in my class who got paired up with like interventionalists and neuroradiologists, etc that didn't learn quite as much general radiology stuff that med students would find useful. FWIW I'm not interested in radiology either, I just did it so that I could look at films during third year and not look like an idiot. If you have limited elective time during third year and don't knwo what you want to do however then I might suggest trying something else if you know you don't want go to into radiology.

 

[sendwich]

I have no interest in going into Radiology, but I need to be more comfortable with reading films as I'm not very good at it right now. Is it better to put this elective off until completion of cores? I would have had IM, Psych and OB/Gyn complete by the time I take this elective as a 3rd year student.

Thanks

If you have any interest in going into one of the non-core rotations, I would do that instead (ie derm, ent, anesthesia. Most people tend to rotate through radiology as a 4th year to get more familiar or use it as a laid-back month (ie for interviews). If your elective month is closer to the end of 3rd year and you're "set" in deciding a field, you can use it to study for step 2 too.

 

[docbill]

I did it in third year... and it was great. Not to mention it looked like I knew more when I started my medicine rotation.

 

[GuzzyRon]

Better to do it now if you have the time as opposed to later.

 

[Deferoxamine]

I have no interest in going into Radiology, but I need to be more comfortable with reading films as I'm not very good at it right now. Is it better to put this elective off until completion of cores? I would have had IM, Psych and OB/Gyn complete by the time I take this elective as a 3rd year student.

Thanks

I had it prior to both Internal Medicine and Surgery, and it was a beautiful skill to have in my back pocket for both of those rotations. I literally felt an adrenaline rush whenever an attending pulled up an image, smirked, and asked me to read the film, thinking I'd be like "WTF I DUNNO". Learning your radiology also familiarizes you with the radiology lingo, which the attendings just eat up if you can use the big words correctly and apply them to a patient's presentation.