Switching early PGY1

[anonnona]

I'm thinking about re-entering the match this year and I would like some advice. Long story short, I think I made a huge mistake matching into a surgical subspecialty. To add to insult, I matched very far from home, will have to be in a long distance relationship, and will be away from friends and aging family. I'm reconsidering re-entering the match and applying to radiology soon into my intern year with the hopes of coming back home.

Rads has always been in the back of my mind, I love anatomy and reading imaging and I actually want to have a life outside of medicine, to which the lifestyle of rads seems much more compatible.

Am I making a rash decision?

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[NDcienporciento100]

I feel for you! And it is going to be a very long intern year for you…. But if that is how you feel you gotta do it. Try to match to one of the pgy2 spot when you do reapply.

 

[redalert]

I'd estimate that at least 10% of radiology applicants are people who switch from other specialties so it's doable. However you're likely to match at a place that's a step down from your current institution.

 

[tomballunger]

Give your intern year a try, surgical subs have longer hours but the day to day work is less mentally taxing. I'm happy in ir dr, I get more time off than surgical subs (urology pgy2s and beyond at my intern year barely had vacation due to coverage and violated the vacation rules), but I do admit the day to day work of surgical subs is more fun, I was an intern on urology for 6 months of my intern year and it's generally more fun in or and clinic than list crushing, since esir ir dr juniors spend pretty much 3 years in dr and take the dr core board exam. Nobody cares if I wrote a 2 liner admission note for small bowel obstruction or obstructing stone that we were gonna take to or and stent anyways but on an inpatient late night ct, cannot miss the pelvic bleeders that lurk. Also the bargaining power of surgical subs is higher than ir dr in the hospital , I've seen the dynamics of it- the hospital successfully demanding my residency to extend more hours on the residents end and decreasing turnaround times creating major drama and new schedule changes vs the urology contracts are kept same for the most part.

Tradeoff of more hours off and more moonlighting covering contrast which is an easy job, but normal day to day can be mentally taxing vs having fun in or and clinic all day at work but less days and hours off. Many of my dr and ir dr classmates would choose the first and I'm really happy where I'm at despite the flaws that I would not want to waste time and effort and throw on risk switching out of a secured esir spot but weigh that into decisions.