The switch

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billyjack7

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So, I'm a resident in an extremely competitive surgical subspecialty. Unfortunately, at the completion of my intern year, I've discovered that I am miserable being a surgery resident. Hate call, hate trauma, hate clinic, hate being a slave to the pager. Hate working more weekends than not, hate the 100+ hour weeks. Especially hate getting the hose job when the categorical GS residents get much better rotation/call schedules than I do. And I have 5 years left of it.

When I was a med student, I was interested in radiology because I love to solve puzzles and I have a pretty good eye when it comes to reading images. For some reason, though, I went and picked the single most competitive thing out there, went for it, and matched. Now comes the horrible realization that I may have made a mistake in my career selection.

So how do I go about switching? I have a specific city I'd like to go to, and I'd rather not screw myself over and risk losing my current job (even though the job sucks) by suddenly declaring that I want to become a radiologist now. How do I even make inquiries to figure out if it's possible to switch? Help please.
 
If you are competitive enough for a competitive surgical subspecialty you should be able to match somewhere in radiology. However if your program is known to be 'malignant', your biggest obstacle will no doubt getting their blessing and, more importantly, the LORs you require from them if you reapply.
I would look into applying to the Direct pathway IR programs as most require 2 clinical years, preferably surgical. Find them on sirweb.org
Or you could tough out the rest of your intern year and see what life is like in the specialty you chose. Prelim surgical years rarely have anything to do with what you'll actually be doing in your subspecialty.
 
I wouldn't consider my program to be malignant, really. Thing is, I had 4 months of my specialty already this year and it turns out that we actually put in more hours than the GS guys. And I like my specialty, but I've got 2 more years of being a second-class citizen with GS followed by 3 more years of those 90-100 hour weeks in my specialty. Didn't seem like such a big deal when I signed on the dotted line...

Anyway, I know there have been others in my specialty who have switched to radiology, I think without having to go through the match. I want to know how to do that. I am not at all concerned with how competitive I am, I have a pretty good CV.
 
Sounds like you are a integrated plastics resident? As long as you have your program's blessing, I imagine you would be more than competitive to switch into radiology. And speaking from the converse viewpoint, I'm sure your program will rapidly fill their integrated plastics spot.
 
Taurus said:
If I were a betting man, that's what I would bet on too.

Well, it's better that you see the light now than later. Cosmetics is not immune to the downturn when people have to choose between putting food on the table or getting a boob job.

Drooping economy blamed for decline in plastic surgery​
Click to expand...

True but plastics is also heavily involved with reconstruction so I'm sure there's still enough work to go around
 
It's got nothing to do with the current or future market for cosmetics or reconstruction. Fact is that I hate my job. Dread going to work every day and have thought about quitting every day for the last 6 months. Can't stomach the idea of doing the same thing, being so damn tired all the time, killing myself for the next 5+ years. All things being equal I think I'd be just as happy as a practicing radiologist as I would an attending plastic surgeon, and I think I've stuck it out long enough to be sure that surgery residency is just f******g miserable and I don't want to do it anymore. I'd like to talk to someone who has actually done this in the past and see how to do it without the risk of pissing my PD off, losing my job and then being an unemployed 30 year old with a ton of debt.
 
billyjack7 said:
It's got nothing to do with the current or future market for cosmetics or reconstruction. Fact is that I hate my job. Dread going to work every day and have thought about quitting every day for the last 6 months. Can't stomach the idea of doing the same thing, being so damn tired all the time, killing myself for the next 5+ years. All things being equal I think I'd be just as happy as a practicing radiologist as I would an attending plastic surgeon, and I think I've stuck it out long enough to be sure that surgery residency is just f******g miserable and I don't want to do it anymore. I'd like to talk to someone who has actually done this in the past and see how to do it without the risk of pissing my PD off, losing my job and then being an unemployed 30 year old with a ton of debt.
Click to expand...

Perhaps it gets better afterwards? Forget about being an attending (which can definitely be lighter in workload) but how about even a 2nd year resident? I know in most medicine programs internship year is usually the worst and the workload gets much more manageable after the 1st year. Maybe you'll experience the same thing as a 2nd year surgery resident?

If you're definitely set on making the transition, I think auntminnie gets a lot more traffic than this site. Might be worth a gander there.
 
So much for the notion that one should or shouldn't factor in conditions of respective residencies when picking a specialty. Seems to me its a perfectly appropriate factor to consider, among many others of course.
 
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asmallchild said:
Perhaps it gets better afterwards?
Click to expand...

This is the line that attendings use to bait med students to go into surgery. "It's hell for 5 years, but it will get better afterwards because you can dictate your schedule". I don't buy it. As long as you have to enroll new patients, do the surgery, and follow-up, you will be very busy. The more you work, the more you make. If you don't work hard enough, you'll go out of business.
 
Yeah, I mean, I guess that's part of what's getting to me. I've seen the schedules, the hours that my seniors work and it just never gets any better. In fact, chief year gets even worse with increased research and administrative responsibilities. Even the second and third year of general surgery are just as bad as intern year because we lose all the orthos and uro guys as well as prelims from the midlevel call pool, so call actually gets worse from intern year to second and third year. Does anyone know of anyone who has actually changed specialties midstream that I could actually talk to? I am not thrilled about the prospect of having to formally apply and go through the match again.
 
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