Rads isn't competitive anymore

Started by Kazaki
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Kazaki

Kazaki

Whatareyetakinabet?
7+ Year Member
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Why is radiology no longer as competitive as it used to be a few years ago? Is it do with how their salaries took a hit a few years back? It really bugs me that people who could barely match into family med a few years back can now match into rads with the same **** scores.
 
cowme said:
Salary got Lower, lifestyle got worse, job market was really bad.

Still couldn't pay me to do anything else in medicine.
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The more I get into MS3 the more I think I can see this perspective. Clinical medicine can really really irritate me. What I originally liked and still like about medicine is more of the stuff you learn from books. Radiology seems like pure path and anatomy, so Im becoming more and more interested. Also interested in anesthesiology because it is basically the specialty of physiology. I can't deal with social work stuff. Its not that I dislike patients, but everything that comes with seeing them drives me nuts.
 
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NWwildcat2013 said:
The more I get into MS3 the more I think I can see this perspective. Clinical medicine can really really irritate me. What I originally liked and still like about medicine is more of the stuff you learn from books. Radiology seems like pure path and anatomy, so Im becoming more and more interested. Also interested in anesthesiology because it is basically the specialty of physiology. I can't deal with social work stuff. Its not that I dislike patients, but everything that comes with seeing them drives me nuts.
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This is pretty much exactly what I'm thinking.
What made me disregard anaesthesiology is all the nurses and techs claiming to be as good as anaesthesiologists. I didn't bust my ass for 12+ years to compete with some nurse for a job.
I can't describe how much it irritates me when patients walk in and start discussing the ddx with you because they googled their symptoms.
I was in the pulmonology OPD and this woman walks in and she's convinced that she's got bronchiolitis, when all she had was the flu. I actually laughed at the patient to her face (got into heaps of trouble haha). Plus all the work with insurance companies and pharmaceutical reps drives me crazy.
I'd much rather just have contact with other doctors, where I know for a fact that most of them aren't complete idiots (except for orthopods obviously)
 
Top tier rads is as competitive as any field.

We should get new numbers this august from the NRMP on charting match outcomes but from the last one we see that radiology still had a ~240 Step 1 average which put it around the 5th highest for all specialties. This was during the downswing in applications and the key to remember here is that rads has A LOT of total spots compared to all of the other competitive fields in the top 8-10 of step 1 scores.

Rads has approx. 1100 spots and the only specialty that even comes close is orthopedic surgery with around 700. All of the rest of the competitive specialties have 100-300 spots. For rads to maintain a 240 average with that many spots means that the top is still very very strong. Just because there are a lot of community programs out there doesn't mean the field is in shambles. There are 220 people who match in all fields but the % is higher in rads due to more spots total.

Also, IR will probably turn out to be one of the top (if not the top) specialty in terms of USMLE whenever the next one comes out (like 2018 or so).

Just my two cents.
 
Cubsfan10 said:
Top tier rads is as competitive as any field.

We should get new numbers this august from the NRMP on charting match outcomes but from the last one we see that radiology still had a ~240 Step 1 average which put it around the 5th highest for all specialties. This was during the downswing in applications and the key to remember here is that rads has A LOT of total spots compared to all of the other competitive fields in the top 8-10 of step 1 scores.

Rads has approx. 1100 spots and the only specialty that even comes close is orthopedic surgery with around 700. All of the rest of the competitive specialties have 100-300 spots. For rads to maintain a 240 average with that many spots means that the top is still very very strong. Just because there are a lot of community programs out there doesn't mean the field is in shambles. There are 220 people who match in all fields but the % is higher in rads due to more spots total.

Also, IR will probably turn out to be one of the top (if not the top) specialty in terms of USMLE whenever the next one comes out (like 2018 or so).

Just my two cents.
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It won't beat derm or plastics.
 
Kazaki said:
Why is radiology no longer as competitive as it used to be a few years ago? Is it do with how their salaries took a hit a few years back? It really bugs me that people who could barely match into family med a few years back can now match into rads with the same **** scores.
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Bad job market a few years ago. Rads definitely work harder than they used to, but salaries are still high (see MGMA data). Med student interest generally lags a few years behind the actual job market.
 
blebb said:
Bad job market a few years ago. Rads definitely work harder than they used to, but salaries are still high (see MGMA data). Med student interest generally lags a few years behind the actual job market.
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Better market now? Was this only in major cities? I'm not someone who needs or wants to live in a major metro.


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WilliamofOckham said:
I agree. Just saying, the lifestyle of IR will always temper its desirability.
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Not necessarily. If you're thinking neuro-interventional then yeah its lifestyle isn't as great as say someone who's in neuroradiology, but still its nowhere near the pit of fire that is neurosurgery, or even general surgery. I think someone that primarily does tumour ablation and vertebroplasties won't have it that bad.
 
Kazaki said:
Not necessarily. If you're thinking neuro-interventional then yeah its lifestyle isn't as great as say someone who's in neuroradiology, but still its nowhere near the pit of fire that is neurosurgery, or even general surgery. I think someone that primarily does tumour ablation and vertebroplasties won't have it that bad.
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Who primarily does that as an IR doc? You don't get to cherry pick your procedures. If you are telling yourself that the lifestyle and call requirement of an IR doc consists of vertebralplasties and tumor ablations you are setting yourself up for a bad wake up call. There are a whole lot of emergencies those general surgeons and GI docs are gonna call IR first about before they even think of getting out of bed at 2am.


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preDoGuy24 said:
Who primarily does that as an IR doc? You don't get to cherry pick your procedures. If you are telling yourself that the lifestyle and call requirement of an IR doc consists of vertebralplasties and tumor ablations you are setting yourself up for a bad wake up call. There are a whole lot of emergencies those general surgeons and GI docs are gonna call IR first about before they even think of getting out of bed at 2am.


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I'm not interested in rads for the lifestyle. I knew that I was compromising lifestyle as soon as I chose med. But I'm only guessing that a private practice IR can pretty much cherry pick the procedures they do.
 
Kazaki said:
I'm not interested in rads for the lifestyle. I knew that I was compromising lifestyle as soon as I chose med. But I'm only guessing that a private practice IR can pretty much cherry pick the procedures they do.
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If you are just guessing why are you responding about a specialties lifestyle as if you know/have experience with that? Talk to an IR doc or read a little bit on here of what there lifestyle entails.


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Kazaki said:
I'm not interested in rads for the lifestyle. I knew that I was compromising lifestyle as soon as I chose med. But I'm only guessing that a private practice IR can pretty much cherry pick the procedures they do.
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Sure you can cherry pick procedures but if you have privileges in a hospital, they're going to expect you to take call. If you won't, they'll get someone who will.
 
I guess I benefited from the less competitive field with my so-called "**** score " on that licencing exam. I seem to be doing well so far based on my in service and attending feedback. I even accepted a fellowship position now as an R2. Sorry if that bugs you. 😛

I have to say though, as mentioned in an earlier post, you couldn't pay me to return to a clinical field.

Not interested in IR. I consider my IR rotation my "appreciate why I went into diagnostic radiology" rotation.
 
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preDoGuy24 said:
If you are just guessing why are you responding about a specialties lifestyle as if you know/have experience with that? Talk to an IR doc or read a little bit on here of what there lifestyle entails.


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It's called a discussion....take a chill pill
 
Kazaki said:
It's called a discussion....take a chill pill
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You are on an anonymous medical board making comments on a specialties lifestyle with the experience of a 3rd year medical student. You shouldn't be doing that. IR docs don't cherry pick their procedures (or their group loses money and they lose their job) and having woken several up this past year to come in for an emergent procedure I can definitely say it's not a lifestyle specialty. As someone likely going into IR it grinds my gears when medical students play it off as this easy going do what procedures you want when you want to do them specialty.
 
Yeah IR can be rough. One IR guy at my hospital basically keeps the stroke center running with the amount of embolectomies etc. that he does at all hours.


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Radiology is still very competitive. And the top 20 or so programs in desirable locations you still need to be a stellar applicant to match. Many other places will opt to not match you rather than take substandard applicants (they will select from the pool of unmatched ortho/ENT applicants). My 260 Step 1/Honors/1st author publications still wasn't enough to land interviews at the most desirable programs.

Sure, maybe it's easier now to get a spot at some community program or a program situated in a less popular location, but that hasn't changed much from the past.
 
Kazaki said:
Why is radiology no longer as competitive as it used to be a few years ago? Is it do with how their salaries took a hit a few years back? It really bugs me that people who could barely match into family med a few years back can now match into rads with the same **** scores.
Click to expand...


Your mom's not competitive anymore.
 
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