Radiology Resident; Ask me Anything!

[Docfunk22]

Hey everyone, I am a third-year radiology resident at a top academic program. I am starting this thread to give back to the SDN community. When I was a pre-med, I had no real mentors and really didn't know any medical residents. Feel free to ask me anything in this thread, and I'll do my best to give you a personalized, honest, and occasionally funny answer.

A quick blurb about me. I grew up in the Midwest, and I am the first physician in my family. After medical school, I matched into radiology at a good program. Long story short, I ended up transferring from my solid academic programto one of the top 5-10 programs in the country after my first year (for family reasons mostly). My passion is physician wellness and professional development.

Ask away!

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[premed74]

Hey everyone, I am a third-year radiology resident at a top academic program. I am starting this thread to give back to the SDN community. When I was a pre-med, I had no real mentors and really didn't know any medical residents. Feel free to ask me anything in this thread, and I'll do my best to give you a personalized, honest, and occasionally funny answer.

A quick blurb about me. I grew up in the Midwest, and I am the first physician in my family. After medical school, I matched into radiology at a good program. Long story short, I ended up transferring from my solid academic programto one of the top 5-10 programs in the country after my first year (for family reasons mostly). My passion is physician wellness and professional development.

Ask away!

What was your step score?

 

[Docfunk22]

What was your step score?

Step 1 score was 245, step 2 score was 255. Step 3 score was 225 (lolz). Nobody cares about step 3 by the way. The best step 3 advice I can give is to take it as early as possible during intern year. I took mine one month in and it felt incredible to have it out of the way.

 

[BigBoss]

Do people still cheat on the radiology board exam because of the physics? Is the physics that hard?


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[Docfunk22]

Do people still cheat on the radiology board exam because of the physics? Is the physics that hard?


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Physics is the most failed section of the core exam, so it's definitely painful. Overall the Core is difficult (death by trivia and crappy images to interpret). That being said the pass rate is something in the 85-89 percent rate. I personally have not heard of anyone cheating on physics, not sure how to pull that off unless you know a writer for the questions.

 

[frog301]

Besides getting a good step score, do you feel like there were things you did during med school that made you more competitive for your desired residency program?

 

[Docfunk22]

Besides getting a good step score, do you feel like there were things you did during med school that made you more competitive for your desired residency program?

In medical school, I did fairly well with my clinical clerkships which helped me get some great letters of recommendation. That being said, I definitely did not honor every clinical rotation or anything like that. My strategy for doing well in the hospital was pretty simple, show up on time, be helpful, be reliable, and work hard to get along with everyone. I know that sounds super simple...but being nice, funny, and reliable gets you really far in medicine. It's hard to not focus on ourselves because of the process we go through, but I really tried to remember that medicine wasn't always about me.

Those same simple things in residency really paid off. Honestly, my clinical knowledge was only average relative to my co-residents, but I got great reviews after my first few years and was able to parlay that into a spot at a much more competitive program (I transferred for family reasons). I really believe I would have never been able to pull that off without a ton of goodwill at my old program (they helped me make things work and I left on great terms with everyone).

Outside of that soft advice, I did standard things. I had one publication, like 3 oral conference presentations, 4 educational exhibits. I spent a few months in India doing medical work in underserved areas after my first year of medical school which was an incredible experience.

 

[Phile98]

Do you plan on going into PP or academic medicine?
Are you going to do a fellowship after residency?
Do you get bored sitting and looking at scans all day?
Maybe you could share insight on Interventional Radiology. Why is it so competitive these days?
Thanks

 

[acslater99]

What’s your schedule look like throughout the week? Do you have weekends off? Do you feel you have a good work-life balance?

 

[bananafish94]

Why did you pick radiology? What is your typical day like? Do you miss extensive patient interaction?

 

[V781]

What do you think of Stanford's project to create a robot that will interpret xrays more accurately than doctors? (I believe Google is also working on this)

Scientists at Stanford have said that their AI program had diagnosed pneumonia with more accuracy than human radiologists.

What do you think this means for the future of radiology?

 

[Docfunk22]

Do you plan on going into PP or academic medicine?
Are you going to do a fellowship after residency?
Do you get bored sitting and looking at scans all day?
Maybe you could share insight on Interventional Radiology. Why is it so competitive these days?
Thanks

Going to do MSK fellowship after residency. Pretty much everyone nowadays does a fellowship in radiology, although thankfully most are only 1 extra year.

I think radiology is super interesting once you are doing it, but horrifically boring when watching someone else. It's an incredibly humbling specialty that constantly challenges you. Because everything you interpret is up for public viewing there is a lot of pressure to nail the right diagnosis, and you can really make a huge difference in patient care. The intellectual demands are really intense, you have to know enough about everything to intelligently talk to a subspecialty clinician, and interpret things quickly/correctly.

I think Interventional Radiology is interesting, I am not entirely sure why it is so competitive these days from a philosophical standpoint. Right now there are very few spots for a lot of applicants so the supply-demand mismatch has created a brutally competitive environment. From a diagnostic radiology standpoint, it seems like most radiologists will still learn how to perform some procedures related to IR in residency (drains, biopsies, other bread and butter procedures), because most radiologists who aren't IR still need to know how to do them.

 

[Docfunk22]

What’s your schedule look like throughout the week? Do you have weekends off? Do you feel you have a good work-life balance?

My schedule during a normal week is about 7:30 am to 5:30-6pm, five days per week. Call is really variable based on the program and the year of training, but this past year I did 30ish 5-10pm weekday call shifts, 2 weeks of overnight work (9pm-8am), 2 weeks of swing (5pm-3am), and about 12 weekend day shifts (10am-10pm). So more often than not I had at least one weekend day off, which is pretty nice.

Worklife balance is elusive. Residency is really demanding because you are working a lot of hours, plus trying to learn the craft on your own time. Radiology residency is especially tough in this regard. I probably don't read as much outside of work as others, but ideally they want us reading for 1-2 hours per day outside of work. When you add in research and any other extra things...it adds up to a pretty busy life. Some of this is self-inflicted though, I do a few side things (startup work and writing).

This next year I am trying to limit my research and outside commitments. I've adopted a firm if not hell yes...then no policy. As in, if I don't say hell yes about an opportunity or activity then I say no.

 

[Docfunk22]

Why did you pick radiology? What is your typical day like? Do you miss extensive patient interaction?

For my typical day schedule see the post above. Most of the time and activities vary from day to day based on the rotation I am on. But on a typical diagnostic radiology service I review cases and interpret them on my own for a period of time, before staffing them at the workstation with an attending physician. This one on one staffing is essential for radiology learning, I think not having the opportunity to staff one on one with an attending is a big red flag when it comes time to look for a radiology residency, you need the feedback to get better.

I absolutely do not miss extensive patient interaction (and I am a people person by nature). The great thing about radiology is there are still opportunities to talk to patients if you want to (IR, clinic, ect.) but you don't have to do it as often. I also really like being a consultant for specialists, which is cool because I spend time talking to other clinicians, building relationships with them, and learning how they think.

 

[Docfunk22]

What do you think of Stanford's project to create a robot that will interpret xrays more accurately than doctors? (I believe Google is also working on this)

Scientists at Stanford have said that their AI program had diagnosed pneumonia with more accuracy than human radiologists.

What do you think this means for the future of radiology?

I think its a really interesting trend that will impact almost all medical professions in the coming decades. I know some of those researchers personally and they are doing some really remarkable work. The general sense I get from them is that we are a long ways away from a true general artificial intelligence image interpretation system, but I think we will see some clinically useful AI tools on the market in the next 10 years. How that plays out is anyone's guess, but in the short to midterm I think it just makes radiologists more efficient. On a long enough time scale I could see it eventually reducing the number of radiologists needed (I think this is like a 20 year out from now issue). I wouldn't let it deter anyone from applying to radiology but I would encourage people to be proactive about learning how to use these tools. I think medicine in general will become a big data driven business.

 

[recycledpaper]

What was the process of transferring programs? Particular your situation where you went from a good program to a top 10 program?

 

[Focus_811]

Have you had any insight into what the current general job availability is in diagnostic radiology and what it may possibly be like about 10 years from now? (I understand this varies from city to city and state to state, and that things are always changing so trying to be accurate about the future job market in radiology can be difficult, but I am just asking for a general opinion on your part. Thanks!)

 

[Docfunk22]

What was the process of transferring programs? Particular your situation where you went from a good program to a top 10 program?

The process was a bit specific to my circumstances but essentially I let my program know what was happening and that I would be contacting the program I ultimately transferred into, to inquire about openings (there was not an advertised spot). After I reached out, and the other program showed interest, I let my old program know and they talked to each other. Then it was fairly straightforward, I sent an application, went on an interview, and found out about 3 weeks after my interview.

Overall it was stressful but I couldn't have done it without the support of my old program, as the PD and many faculty personally vouched for me. A good reminder that being a good resident and nice person to work with can pay off big time.

 

[mlovelley]

Hey there! Thanks for all the advice so far - would you recommend doing aways? I'm interested in IR and I'm most likely going to just apply to the ESIR route