Anyone have any experience or thoughts about going through this route? Also how is its competitiveness in getting in and is it worth doing the extra year.
VIR Direct programs
- Thread starter tharkuhn
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The DIRECT programs are few and most are already filled up. Plus, you have to be smart as heck - you only get 27 months of diagnostics. And yes, they are just as competitive as the traditional. But, if you know you want to do interventional, go for it.
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It is true that the DIRECT programs are equally competitive. Keep in mind that they offer the advantage of a more focused IR training experience at the expense of less diagnostic training with no time saving, loss of choice of subspecialty (it's difficult to switch back to plain DR) and loss of choice of fellowship program. This is to mean that DIRECT is 6 years total, not five, and you are training at the same place all six years. Be absolutely certain IR is what you want to do.
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Agree.
I thought about the direct program, but decided that I am not absolutely convinced on interventional. If you are dead-set on IR, than it may very well be for you. There are a mix of upper level and mid-lower level programs participating.
http://www.theabr.org/VIR_DIRECT.htm
I thought about the direct program, but decided that I am not absolutely convinced on interventional. If you are dead-set on IR, than it may very well be for you. There are a mix of upper level and mid-lower level programs participating.
http://www.theabr.org/VIR_DIRECT.htm
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Does anyone know how difficult it is to acquire a fellowship in VIR? How easy is it to do VIR if you do your DR residency at a place without a VIR fellowship?
Thanks
Thanks
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Currently, despite the accounts of IR being much more competitive to match than last year, its still not that hard, most people will get one of their top 3 picks in the match. Some pretty good programs like Penn, Mallinckrodt and U Wash went unfilled. Just show that you are a hard worker and have a surgeon-like aggressive mentality, and you'll match.
Unless you are 110% sure you want do IR, I wouldn't recommend doing the DIRECT pathway... and I say this as someone who was pretty sure I wanted to do IR when I applied for radiology.
The kind of IR I had envisioned as a junior medical student (doing aorto-iliac stent-grafts, thoracic stents and revascularizations) is totally different from the IR of today. Arterial vascular work nearly exclusively out of the hands of IRs. This was a real eye-opening and disheartening realization to see this turf lost in the span of a few short years. I have to admit I was disillusioned by IR and had to be re-sold on the idea of IR sans vascular disease. The future is in oncology and venous interventions. CTA and MRA have already supplanted diagnostic angiography. Realize that IR is a dynamic field with procedures being developed and sometimes lost and still new procedures developed. Your turf is constantly under threat from the clinicians who think they have expertise in what YOU do.
Even so I love this field and can't think of anything else I'd rather do.
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Is there such a thing as direct to MSK radiology or a program where you can get intensive MSK procedural training?
Thanks!
Thanks!
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Not that I know of.
But if you can do an LP you can do an epidural. If you can do an epidural, you can do a nerve block. If you can do a nerve block, you can do facets.
If you can do a bone biopsy, you can do a vertebral biopsy. If you can do a vertebral biopsy, you can do V-plasty, if you can do V-plasty you can do K-plasty. Go to a good hands-on residency, and you can learn to do all of these.
There are plenty of IRs, Neuro and MSK rads that did fellowship way before these were invented who learned them from device manufacturer in-services and later became proficient in them.
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http://www.theabr.org/VIR_DIRECT.htm
Of those on the list, Northwestern and Penn probably have the strongest and best known IR programs these days... General rads is top notch at these places as well.
Stanford and B and W are hugely popular for good IR and excellent general rads rep, but above all... LOCATION!
