Short-term outlook of Body and Neuro fellowships in the market

[RadioPaisano]

Question primarily for those in that are involved in hiring and/or fellowship administration. I'm currently a rads resident and approaching application season, attempting to decide between body and neuro. Setting aside personal preference, case load, and the implicit understanding that in PP "sub-specialized" reading is less than the usual, more "general" radiology work, which of two fellowships would you consider to be more sought after currently and in the next few years? This mostly focused on PP or the "hybrid" systems of community residency programs through a hospital with a radiology group, where there might not be strong individual or near stand-alone departments.

Seems the market is in a strong upward movement and while promising, it's hard to predict for 3-4 years from now, when one would be entering the workforce.

Thank you all.

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[MadRadLad]

Neuro is likely more valuable for PP from what I have heard. Body's value tends to be magnified at more academic places that do more advanced transplant & onc.

 

[Tiger100]

In my area, Body has a little edge over Neuro for marketability but not a significant difference.

The value of Neuro has been hyphed mostly by neurorads and it has a good historical reason behind it. These days, almost all recent graduates that I have seen and most mid-career radiologists (like me) can handle almost all of neuro cases AT THE LEVEL OF COMMUNITY very well.

 

[Radology]

Yea I agree, with this last statement. Body is more in demand in my area, neuro is oversaturated.

I never understood the notion that everyone can read body but only neuro readers can handle neuro. I see the quality of body ct reports from people neuro trained. They’re about the level of a senior resident. Which is totally adequate, but it’s a noticeable step below the body readers in terms of overcalls and misses. I’m sure the same is true of my neuro reads; they’re adequate, but I’m sure it could be better in other hands.

But this dichotomy between neuro and body is nuts. Neuro people can handle a liver protocol ct, But god forbid I read a 95 year old spine MR in which saying “spine is F’ed up, goto town dr. Surgeon” would suffice

 

[Tiger100]

Yea I agree, with this last statement. Body is more in demand in my area, neuro is oversaturated.

I never understood the notion that everyone can read body but only neuro readers can handle neuro. I see the quality of body ct reports from people neuro trained. They’re about the level of a senior resident. Which is totally adequate, but it’s a noticeable step below the body readers in terms of overcalls and misses. I’m sure the same is true of my neuro reads; they’re adequate, but I’m sure it could be better in other hands.

But this dichotomy between neuro and body is nuts. Neuro people can handle a liver protocol ct, But god forbid I read a 95 year old spine MR in which saying “spine is F’ed up, goto town dr. Surgeon” would suffice

In private practice, most people do many things with some level of specialization. Even if the day work of a group is sub-specialized every one takes calls and every one has weekend work which is 2/7 of the work just for weekend.

 

[RadioPaisano]

Got me wondering, since the 2016 ACR workforce survey places body more "in demand" than neuro currently, but in speaking with some of the fellows at my institution, it seems the neuro fellows are having more and "better" offers, taking into account the extremely high amount of bias and what may be a great offer for some is not so great for others.

 

[scootad.]

The job market is wide open in general for pretty much everyone (except nucs/peds). I doubt one fellowship type is getting any better (or worse) offers than another.

 

[Radology]

You can’t Time the needs of the market two years from now. Do what you like more out of body and neuro. Both are wide open right now

 

[Tiger100]

Getting a job is a relatively random process that depends on your skills and the needs of the groups in the area that you are looking into.

However, in my 15 years of practice IR and MSK have been always in higher demand. Neuro and Body were OK. We never hired a Nucs or chest radiologist.

The most marketable person (with a big edge over others) has always been a general radiologist with 5+ years of private practice experience who is willing to participate in practice building. A few years ago we chose someone with 20 years of experience and no fellowship training over a fresh graduate with 2 fellowships from a top program and we are very very happy about our choice.

 

[TCOM12]

Current fellow. A lot of the Neuro fellowship trained jobs tend to be ED and nights favored because of the high volume of Neuro perfusion and people not being comfortable with it. There are exceptions to this. The body fellows tend to offer something to a private practice if they can up their pelvic MR volume (prostate and cervical).

The market is wide open right now with a ton of nucs and peds preferred training (more than 0 basically).

If you want a guaranteed job somewhere, do mammo. But you have to be okay with reading all the screens and what not.