Stanford Combined Radiology-Nuclear Medicine

[Imaging]

What are people's thoughts on this program?

It is a 5 year program (1st year is 9 months of nucs + 3 months of research, then 3 years of radiology residency, then 9 months of nucs + 3 months of research)

Advantages: ABR and ABNM certified, Stanford (+perks like research etc)
I'm going to read up about ABNM, but is being ABR and ABNM certified an advantage for private practice, I'm likely doing academia but don't want to shut any doors.

Disadvantages: this makes me not sure how I would rank this program, the fact that 1 whole year of radiology residency is cut out (and if Stanford's volume is an issue, then this is a big deal), but then when I think about it a lot of places are doing the 3+2, or even the last year is like mini-fellowships/research which could look like the new combined residency curriculum. If I were to do pp, I would of course do another fellowship most likely.

Also, I've read about this in the NM forum, even though molecular imaging is one of the frontiers of imaging research, why does the outlook for NM not promising (or is that only if you're only nucs trained and not nucs+rads trained?

Thanks.

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[shark2000]

Real world is different than academic research world. Application of a new technology or science innovation to real world is influenced by many many factors which are more important than the usefulness of research itself. PP world is influenced by availability, affordability and ease of use. With all my respects for all people in research world, there is a huge misunderstanding of real world among them. Anyway, honestly personally I don't think molecular imaging is going to be a real world big player in the near future. It will go the way that Brain MR perfusion, Brain MR specroscopy, Cartilage sodium imaging, Cardiac MRI or even something like Y-90 treatment for metastatic cancer have gone. When I was medical student there were always lecture that how these entities are going to change the world and none of them did. For example, a lot of MSK people are doing research on sodium imaging for knee cartilage. But at the end of the day, it is a DJD and should be replaced once the patient can not function well with physical therapy.

These may play a role, but in limited cases. Many are just mental masturbation. None of them are going to change their respective field that much. I can say that CT screening for lung cancer has much more real world impact than all of the above-mentioned modalities altogether at least from pp perspective.

Nuclear medicine fellowship can be done in one year after residency and you can get both boards. It is useful for big cancer centers and academics. If you want to work in MD Anderson or MSKCC, then you need it. But for an average pp group, everybody reads PET-CT which is a lion share of Nucs in pp. Cardiac Nucs is done 20-30% by rads and the rest by Cards. 10% of studies in pp are V/Q, bone scan and HIDA or thyroid. Once in a blue moon you may get some other studies.

If you want to work in academics, this is a good opportunity. For pp, I don't think so. But still you have 3 years of radiology residency and have the chance to do another fellowship in case you change your mind. If you don't mind doing 1 year of extra fellowship, you will be fine.

 

[Imaging]

Thanks for the response shark, I really enjoy reading your responses, not just to my question but on other threads as well.

I guess the only thing I have trouble right now is ranking this program. As someone who wants to stay in California to practice eventually, the forums seem to suggest ranking the local programs SoCal, NorCal higher than everywhere else for future local and in-state ties for academia/pp jobs.

Stanford is likely my number 1, so I really don't know where I want to put the combined program in relation to the rest of the programs in Cali (I interviewed at all of them).

 

[shark2000]

This is a very personal choice and you have to come to the decision yourself. My only recommendation is to keep all options open. Your interests change and evolve over time. You may like Neuro now but 5 years from now find yourself more interested in Body imaging or IR. Or even 5 years into practice, you find yourself more interested in a totally different field. Good Luck.

 

[colbgw02]

the fact that 1 whole year of radiology residency is cut out (and if Stanford's volume is an issue, then this is a big deal)

We've had a number of non-radiologist NM physicians come through my program to retrain as radiologists. The ABR says they can either do residency in 3 years or stick around for the full 4 years (I've never understood that, but I digress). The general consensus is that the 3-year people are appreciably behind their classmates at the time of graduation (well, except for in nucs, obviously).