RadOnc/Neurosurg Residency

[physiologyguy]

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I am most interested in RadOnc as a specialty. I want to stay in an academic setting (finished my phd last year, med school at cornell this fall), and everything i love about oncology and medicine and basic science research seems to be involved in radonc.

I was wondering- does anywhere have a combined radonc/neurosurg residency? Is there any impetus for this? My thought is that this is just too much to combine, but it seems that these two feilds compliment each other extremely well. As I am interested in cancer research while i practice, rad onc seems to allow for more time/opportunities to pursue research than neurosurg would.

Thoughts?

 

[deleted4401]

I don't mean to be negative, but I don't agree that the training would complement each other. Surgery and RT are both local therapies, but I think they are completely different specialties. Figure out if you like surgery, then you can consider NSurg. There just isn't enough time for you to develop excellent surgical skills if you are spending 20 hours a week in dosimetry doing CNS plans. The same can be said about rad-onc - you're not going to be able to learn the literature and how to treat all the anatomical sites if you are up every 2nd to 3rd night draining subdurals.

Do General Surgery and see if you like surgical management of patients, the floor work, the OR, etc., then do an elective in Neurosurg. Rad-onc has a completely different flow/vibe.

-S

 

[physiologyguy]

Thanks for the feedback. Seems they do compliment each other quite well, but whether the same person should train and do them both, I think i agree; could prevent you from really excelling at either. I dont think Surg is my bag - way more into Onc and RadOnc...

Thanks for input.

 

[Raygun77]

Just a general question that might also help the OP- if you do rad onc, how quickly can you sub-specialise to have a special interest in CNS malignancies?