Radiology Rotation in 3rd Year

[sunealoneal]

---

Members don't see this ad.

Hello,

I'm a 2nd year strongly interested in radiation oncology.

I need to figure out my schedule for next year soon. Is radiology a rotation that I can learn from and apply elsewhere? I've spoken to several people and have gotten mixed feedback. Some say that it gave them a good foundation for imaging and developing differentials that they were able use on other rotations. Others said the nature of radiology precludes 3rd year students from having a meaningful experience over the course of a month; in other words that the rotation is too short to be helpful.

Which end of the spectrum seems to be more typical at your institutions?

 

[jorts42]

It's probably highly variable depending on what school you're at and what resident you're working with. Some teach a lot if they have time during the shift, some don't. It also depends on whether they involve you by letting you look up info in the patient's chart to correlate the clinical findings with imaging findings.

It could be anything from you sitting there zoning out for several hours not having any idea what's going on and the resident ignoring you because the list is so long, to the list being not too bad and getting a lot of teaching and having a great experience.

At one point in time, I also was interested in radiation oncology. There is a lot of imaging in radiation oncology. If you're considering radiology as a career as well, I would do the elective. If not, I think there are other things that are more useful to someone wanting to go into radiation oncology such as: rad onc rotation, hem onc outpatient, hem onc inpatient, research (in that order). Imaging is something you'll learn over time no matter what you choose but having a significant oncology experience where you see how physicians have to interact with cancer patients and their families is more important in my opinion. Also, research is super important for applying to rad onc.

 

[sunealoneal]

Honestly the reason why I'm considering this rotation is that my summer research is not being counted as an elective. I have to make it up during winter and spring break, so I'd be splitting it up into two portions, one 3 weeks and one that's 1 week. A clinical admin thought radiology would be easier to break up than other rotations.

Thanks for that insight, you've given me enough to consider haggling with them about this again.