- Apr 18, 2012
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- Attending Physician
'Unique' Residency Programs in Radiology
- Thread starter JoshSt
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- Apr 18, 2012
- 433
- 188
- Attending Physician
My understanding with MIR's research track is that it is built in to your 4 years of rad residency... is this true for the other research tracks?
Unless you want to do exclusively academics and at any price, avoid research tracks.
I don't have any NEW details about different programs but for pp:
a. If it is a year of your residency, it is very bad. Radiology has become very very broad and these days and for the foreseeable future most groups expect you to read everything and do most basic procedures. 3 years of clinical service is not enough to make you competent in all aspects. Even 4 years is not enough, but that is a different story.
b. If it is a year IN ADDITION to 4 years, it is total waste of time. If you want to spend (waste) a year, spend it doing another fellowship. It makes you much more marketable and gives you a life long experience.
Though I am always a big proponent of going to a top program and sometime even biased, in this case I rank a research track much lower than the prestige and level of the original program. If you want to become the chairman of Hopkins in 10 years, that is a different story.
I don't have any NEW details about different programs but for pp:
a. If it is a year of your residency, it is very bad. Radiology has become very very broad and these days and for the foreseeable future most groups expect you to read everything and do most basic procedures. 3 years of clinical service is not enough to make you competent in all aspects. Even 4 years is not enough, but that is a different story.
b. If it is a year IN ADDITION to 4 years, it is total waste of time. If you want to spend (waste) a year, spend it doing another fellowship. It makes you much more marketable and gives you a life long experience.
Though I am always a big proponent of going to a top program and sometime even biased, in this case I rank a research track much lower than the prestige and level of the original program. If you want to become the chairman of Hopkins in 10 years, that is a different story.
- Apr 18, 2012
- 433
- 188
- Attending Physician
Great insights, as always. Thank you for this and your other posts. They are really helpful for future radiologists.
- Apr 18, 2012
- 433
- 188
- Attending Physician
I know google would solve all my questions, I'm just trying to keep the conversation alive so residents and applicants can share different things about different programs to guide current and future applicants in making interview and ranking decisions. Thanks for your UCLA post.
I agree that most of the Radiology residents out there have no interest in pursuing research of any kind, and that's cool, it's not for everyone. But since we are all unique and have different interests/goals, I would really like to see this topic elaborated upon further. Personally, I do plan on staying academic (gasp!) and setting up my own research lab when the time comes. I'm probably in the minority here, I know. However, these research track programs wouldn't exist if program directors didn't feel there was a need to train an individual in the ways of research, regardless of whether you eventually choose private practice or academia. After all, science is the foundation of medicine and it's important for us all to move the field forward if possible.
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- Apr 18, 2012
- 433
- 188
- Attending Physician
This is in part why I ask. Subject to change but those are my current career ambitions.
It is a track that is designed for academics. As I said before, it is useless and in fact somehow harmful for pp.
A lot of big academic centers prefer their graduates to pursue academic career, though most don't. I always respect the people who have trained me. But also, it is understandable that most of academic people are biased towards academics, the same way that pp people including me are biased towards pp.
I know that it is very early for medical students to decide whether they want to go into pp or academics. However, some may have some sort of idea. Also the field is relatively flexible. If you are deep into research, go for it. If you like the educational aspect of academics, but not research, you can find a job in a mid size academic center or teaching community hospital which usually have much less emphasis on research.
Academics vs. pp have their own pros and cons. It is not like that one is good and one is bad. It fits different personalities. As a medical student you may have a better idea of academic job. pp is a totally different beast. You have to be ready to do everything, including any imaging modality or any basic procedure. You may be able to obtain some of these skills after your training, but you have to learn most of them during your training. It is not like that Neuroradiologist reads only Neuro. Don't get surprised if you do 2 year of Neuroradiology fellowship, but you end up reading 80% non Neuro studies including mammo, barium, Liver biopsy, Ports, MRI ankle or .... Be ready for it.
I am in a traditional residency but interviewed for several of the research tracks. They are mostly at the very competitive institutions, so I'd say they are pretty competitive on the whole. There are only a few spots, but it's very self selective and only a few people are truly interested for the reasons above. Overall, I'd say the competitiveness is probably about the same.
I agree with the above advice. I had extensive research experience before starting residency several years ago, and am almost exclusively interested in academics. However, I ranked non-research tracks above research tracks for the reasons mentioned above. I wanted to have strong clinical skills when I left residency and chose based on that rather than some place where I could do research at the expense of time on clinical services. PM me if you have specific questions.
They are less competitive in the traditional sense (grades, USMLE).
You need some real research credentials though.
Not exactly "competitiveness" of course, but here are the approximate numbers for the UCSD research track. I found it interesting to see the breakdown.
160 applied in ERAS
80 "appropriate" for program (i.e. MD/PhD or first-author/thesis/dissertation level experience already and ready to springboard academic career, as opposed to wanting to get involved with research from scratch)
30 interviewed
3 matched
