undecided3279
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The only downside to rads is that the vast majority of your colleagues have little respect for what you do and the volume.
If you are in between, I think radiology would be a better choice IMO. Better lifestyle and more $$$.
I am not sure general radiology has more autonomy / leverage in the hospital than IM. I think it might be the same because both are not generating a lot revenue.
I like my job as a hospitalist mostly because of flexibility; the money is not bad either. If I were younger when I was in med school, I would have chosen radiology. I was also in between IM and radiology.
I really have not sensed the disrespect that OP talked about, then again I have been a doc for only 6 yrs (residency included).They may not understand the volume, but I believe internally they respect what we do even though they may not say it out loud. I believe that jealousy, combined with the idea that we don't see patients, somehow contributes to the perceived disrespect. Caveat is that, the disrespect is not everywhere, I trained at a very strong program, and our department was highly respected in the hospital. Fellowship at a different institution (also a top radiology department) was different. It was odd and very laughable to see senior IM residents try to lecture me over the phone on lung CT. Oddly though, at this same institution, there was a tumor board that no attending or radiology fellow could attend. I thought the surgeons and oncologists would proceed without us. Guess what? It was cancelled.
Once cardiologists get a taste of imaging, they try to do more of it (not less) and decrease patient-facing encounters. At one institution, they were reading myocardial perfusion PET/CT without any radiology over-reads. In their reports, they would say that the CT was for attenuation correction and not interpretable for extra-cardiac structures. After a few successful lawsuits, they were happy to have radiologists over-read the studies and split the RVUs for the cardiac PET/CTs.
Can I ask what state this was in? I think there are many physician unfriendly states where the patient would have won that lawsuit and radiologists often have to settle for a LOT. Especially since the jury of laypeople have no idea what is considered reasonable and prosecution brings a in a biased "expert", add in the emotional and societal prominence that cancer, especially breast has in most peoples minds.One of my attendings in residency "missed" a very subtle breast mass that would be nearly impossible to call prospectively. The mass got bigger on a later study and required a mastectomy. The patient sued after her mastectomy but she lost as it was decided that making that call was not reasonable. Making that call means a higher call-back rate and many women getting unnecessary diagnostic mammograms/breast ultrasounds.
Can I ask what state this was in? I think there are many physician unfriendly states where the patient would have won that lawsuit and radiologists often have to settle for a LOT. Especially since the jury of laypeople have no idea what is considered reasonable and prosecution brings a in a biased "expert", add in the emotional and societal prominence that cancer, especially breast has in most peoples minds.
Yeah unfortunately I think that's a big point against the field..I cannot say for anonymity reasons, but it is a physician friendly state. I agree that the wrong jury could have voted differently.