Useful non-radiology electives

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pfuddy

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Hi all,

I am considering doing radiology and just wondering what would be some good non-radiology electives to do. I am thinking ortho, uro, neurosurgery, general surgery?

Just want something with a lot of imaging

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Any of those wouldn’t be a bad choice. But honestly, the problem is that as a medical student, those rotations are so short, and you have such a small baseline amount of knowledge about those specialties to begin with, that it’s hard for them to make a meaningful impact in terms of helpful radiology knowledge in the future.

I would do what you personally find most interesting.

But surgical specialties for sure have a better understanding of imaging than non-surgical ones, typically.
 
Oncology could be good. Lots of imaging there. Problem with surgical subspecialties is they insist they understand the imaging (which isn't completely incorrect, but they don't know what they don't know). In the oncology world, you'll get to go to tumor boards and see radiologists there, also.

ER is also not a terrible idea. They image pretty much everything. It also tends to be exciting for med students and you may only have to do 14-15 shifts in a month.

But really, you can pick anything and get a variety of imaging. The only people that don't readily utilize us are psych and derm.
 
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But really, you can pick anything and get a variety of imaging.

Less so with allergy, anesthesia, dermatology, cardiac electrophysiology, endocrinology, hematology, laboratory medicine, medical genetics, medical toxicology, most ophthalmology, palliative care, physical medicine and rehabilitation, preventive medicine, psychiatry, sleep medicine, transfusion medicine.
 
sounds good! I think ill consider doing ER or neurosurgery
 
radiation oncology! get a good idea of what happens with x-rays when you crank up the juice
also lots of imaging, super useful for radiology, can help ID + vs - nodes, PETs/PSMAs for secret tumors, etc.
 
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As a current neurorad fellow.. my biggest recommendation is doing any gross anatomy elective you can. I did anatomy prosection my last month in med school and that helped me out more than anything else. You won’t retain enough info from any clinical rotation for it to be useful. I studied anatomy hard in med school and that helped me out than any rotation ever could during residency
 
radiation oncology! get a good idea of what happens with x-rays when you crank up to juice
also lots of imaging, super useful for radiology, can help ID + vs - nodes, PETs/PSMAs for secret tumors, etc.

In my unbiased opinion, I agree. We utilize imaging for treatment 99.9% of the time and use multiple imaging modalities for planning.

We do rely heavily on our radiology colleagues to help with diagnosing and for target delineation. In every treatment plan, we have to contour normal anatomical structures on a CT scan.
 
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I say explore whatever sounds interesting to you. This is your last chance to really "try on" various specialties. If you want something related to radiology, all of the advice above is great. Just do what interests you, not necessarily what you think you're supposed to do.
 
I made my fourth year as easy as possible. I agree with the anatomy lab elective - I can actually see that being helpful.
 
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