ultra noobie question

[ThinkTooMuch]

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is it normal for an IR to meet with a patient and subsequently perform an intervention on that patient at a hospital? i ask because thats not the sense i get from reading stuff here. a IR performed a Varicocele embolization on me a few years back and afterwords my pain went from like 10 to 1 and i thought he was the coolest doc and it would be great if i could do something like that on a regular basis. the thought of sitting down and just going through images all day makes me want to cry. sorry for rambling.

 

[Pontifex Maximus]

I don't really understand your question. Interventions is kinda what IR docs do. Are you asking if you can see a patient in clinic and then subsequently do a procedure on them in the hospital?

PS: As of right now, anyone interested in IR needs to finish 4 years of DR. Lots of images in there if it would make you cry.

 

[ThinkTooMuch]

Yes I mean is the majority of a IR time spent meeting with patients and then doing procedures, if he wants to? Whereas DR would primary look at images and have zero patient contact?

 

[colbgw02]

You're trying to create a dichotomy where there isn't necessarily one. Diagnostic radiologists do procedures and have patient contact, but it is true that they spend a lot of their day looking at images. Interventional radiologists spend much of their day with patients and doing (more complex) procedures, but they also have to look at many images. If you want to do procedures but hate imaging, then I would say neither DR nor IR are for you.

 

[ThinkTooMuch]

oh no no no. i do not deal in absolutes. only imaging would not be a balance. but thanks for clearing up IR thats what i was wondering about.

 

[MasterShakeDO]

Please see the thread about "breaking news in IR". One of the goals of the primary certificate in interventional radiology is that interventionalists will have more ownership of their patients. In the future, more and more interventionalists will be admitting and following their own patients. Some would say this is necessary for the specialty to survive in this age of turf wars.

 

[MasterShakeDO]

PS: As of right now, anyone interested in IR needs to finish 4 years of DR. Lots of images in there if it would make you cry.

Not all who go in need to do 4 years of DR. There are 20+ Direct Pathway programs that integrate Clinical/IR/DR at an average of 2 years experience in each. I looked into it, but the thought of 2 years of what amounts to surgical internship before starting radiology made ME want to cry.

 

[irwarrior]

I am an IR Doc. I have a busy clinic and see 10-15 patients in a morning. New consults, follow ups, etc. So based on all this I can decide what treatment or medical therapy to offer patient. Some patients I just follow post intervention for years. I also do some basic preventative care . LDL(statin therapy), BP control, smoking cessation, diet and exercise,pletal etc.

I do clinic 1/2 day to 1 day a week. 2-3 days of intervention a week. So, I feel I am basically a minimally invasive specialist who uses imaging to help perform many of my procedures . But, my focus is on disease processes (Vascular and oncology primarily).

As far as training paradigms, there are several ways to get into IR. See Theabr.org or sirweb.org to find out training options.

Good luck. Hope you join this extremely fun, exciting, and cutting edge field.

 

[ThinkTooMuch]

i am an ir doc. I have a busy clinic and see 10-15 patients in a morning. New consults, follow ups, etc. So based on all this i can decide what treatment or medical therapy to offer patient. Some patients i just follow post intervention for years. I also do some basic preventative care . Ldl(statin therapy), bp control, smoking cessation, diet and exercise,pletal etc.

I do clinic 1/2 day to 1 day a week. 2-3 days of intervention a week. So, i feel i am basically a minimally invasive specialist who uses imaging to help perform many of my procedures . But, my focus is on disease processes (vascular and oncology primarily).

As far as training paradigms, there are several ways to get into ir. See theabr.org or sirweb.org to find out training options.

Good luck. Hope you join this extremely fun, exciting, and cutting edge field.

thank you!

 

[osli]

I am an IR Doc. I have a busy clinic and see 10-15 patients in a morning. New consults, follow ups, etc. So based on all this I can decide what treatment or medical therapy to offer patient. Some patients I just follow post intervention for years. I also do some basic preventative care . LDL(statin therapy), BP control, smoking cessation, diet and exercise,pletal etc.

I do clinic 1/2 day to 1 day a week. 2-3 days of intervention a week. So, I feel I am basically a minimally invasive specialist who uses imaging to help perform many of my procedures . But, my focus is on disease processes (Vascular and oncology primarily).

Out of curiosity, do you do any primary DR routinely? In other words, do you routinely devote 1/2 a day or a day to reading images and providing interpretations that aren't connected directly to your IR patients? Do you share DR workload in any way with other DR docs? Or take any DR or mostly DR call?

Just wondering.