There are plenty of naysayers out there who might have you believe that all of us radiologists should start learning Hindi sometime over the next few years. These dire predictions are generally made by non-radiologist physicians who are either poorly informed, bitter, jealous, or some combination of all three.
Radiology will probably undergo some significant restructuring over the next decade. For example, the currently white hot job market will probably tone down down a few notches in the short term as most fields typically undergo boom-bust cycles (though these tend to be thankfully attenuated in medicine given the cartel-like controls on licensure). Teleradiology, whether domestic or outsourced to foreign firms, will add a new level of competition that may adversely impact compensation per study. And if our dear enlightened leaders continue to drive this country into fiscal oblivion, government cuts to Medicare reimbursement are likely to accelerate.
On the flip side, imaging will incontrovertibly become an increasingly central component to medical diagnosis and treatment. Rapid improvements in computing power have given rise to a generation of imaging equipment that would make Roentgen cream in his lederhosen; and Moore's Law insinuates that the pace of change will rocket geometrically. This, combined with whole new inroads in functional imaging (like using paramagnetically tagged monoclonal antibodies) will make the diagnostic radiologist something of an in situ pathologist. Interventional procedures, like RF ablation of inoperable tumors, and nuclear therapeutics, like using radioactively tagged monoclonal antibodies against specific tumor-expressed antigens, will revolutionize aspects of medical and surgical therapy.
To accomodate these changes, radiology will continue on its path to super-segmentation, giving rise to entirely new fields that may well become their own medical specialties in the not-too-distant-future.
So F the naysayers. Rads is the way to go.
