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- Feb 9, 2006
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I would love to hear from any rad residents or practitioners who stop by these boards. I know this question is a little stupid, but I am interested in the responses all the same:
Does being a good diagnostic radiologist rely more on intellectual capacity - thinking - or more on regurgitation of rotely memorized facts?
I understand that interpreting images correctly is the most important skill a radiologist can have, but I am thinking more along the lines of the underpinnings of that and other radiologist skills.
Why I care:
My relative strength is thinking, that's what helped me do well on the MCAT; other pre-meds may have studied harder and knew more basic science facts than I did, but I was able to think through the test questions and ultimately perform very well on the MCAT and college exams in general. My relative weakness is the memorization and regurgitation of facts. It seems to me, a second year med student with very, very little clinical experience, that the quality of an internist is largely dependent on 'how much he or she knows', whereas the quality of a surgeon is largely dependent on 'technical skill' and experience performing the procedure. Radiology is perhaps in a class all of its own. My apologies if this dichotomy is too much of a simplification to mean anything, but I tend to divide jobs, roles, and abilities along the lines of 'thinking' and 'knowing', and I'd like to apply that here.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from some rad people, including you, Apache Indian.
Does being a good diagnostic radiologist rely more on intellectual capacity - thinking - or more on regurgitation of rotely memorized facts?
I understand that interpreting images correctly is the most important skill a radiologist can have, but I am thinking more along the lines of the underpinnings of that and other radiologist skills.
Why I care:
My relative strength is thinking, that's what helped me do well on the MCAT; other pre-meds may have studied harder and knew more basic science facts than I did, but I was able to think through the test questions and ultimately perform very well on the MCAT and college exams in general. My relative weakness is the memorization and regurgitation of facts. It seems to me, a second year med student with very, very little clinical experience, that the quality of an internist is largely dependent on 'how much he or she knows', whereas the quality of a surgeon is largely dependent on 'technical skill' and experience performing the procedure. Radiology is perhaps in a class all of its own. My apologies if this dichotomy is too much of a simplification to mean anything, but I tend to divide jobs, roles, and abilities along the lines of 'thinking' and 'knowing', and I'd like to apply that here.
Anyway, I'd like to hear from some rad people, including you, Apache Indian.
