When was your "aha!" moment (radiology)?

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Hello all,

***clarification*** "aha" moment as in, when did you know you wanted to do radiology

I'm a curious MS-I that worked in radiology for 5 years before I got here and I enjoy studying the imaging we receive in our blocks, so the title of the thread says it all.

Did you know coming into med school? Did you find out on rotations? Was it on a dedicated radiology rotation or reading imaging on another rotation?

I look forward to reading your stories,
-NF

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[spacegun]

Hello all,

I'm a curious MS-I that worked in radiology for 5 years before I got here and I enjoy studying the imaging we receive in our blocks, so the title of the thread says it all.

Did you know coming into med school? Did you find out on rotations? Was it on a dedicated radiology rotation or reading imaging on another rotation?

I look forward to reading your stories,
-NF

Do you mean aha moment in first learning to read and correctly identify things in an image like a chest x-ray or brain CT, or aha moment in accurately diagnosing something on imaging for a real patient, or aha moment in deciding on radiology as a specialty?

I'm just a med student and haven't picked a specialty but I had a lot aha moments reading Felson's, that book has a good sense of humor too! I'd recommend it.

 

[NecrotizingFasciitis]

Do you mean aha moment in first learning to read and correctly identify things in an image like a chest x-ray or brain CT, or aha moment in accurately diagnosing something on imaging for a real patient, or aha moment in deciding on radiology as a specialty?

I'm just a med student and haven't picked a specialty but I had a lot aha moments reading Felson's, that book has a good sense of humor too! I'd recommend it.

I'll look into it!

Any sorry I should have clarified the "aha" moment

 

[akaMondo]

I was on my pediatric rotation and got put in the reading room for a week. Realized how damn smart all the radiologists were, it was frankly unbelievable the things they would mention off-handedly while looking at an image. Realized all patient care goes through radiology, and that it's a field where you are consistently putting a huge chunk of what you learned in medical school to use. Physicians look to you to make decisions on their own patients. Everyone is so nice and chill, tons of procedures, in-hospital, fast-paced... really a great fit for me. I'm someone who loved every rotation in medical school, so choosing only one specialty was difficult.

 

[colbgw02]

Despite checking all of the boxes as a student, I still had some reservations going into internship. I spent July of my intern year mainly in an urgent care OB clinic, seeing almost exclusively 1st-trimester bleeding. By the end of the first day, I had done 18 pelvic/speculum exams. I knew then.

 

[radapplicant920]

This is too big of a life decision to base on an "aha" moment. Calculate all the variables, weigh the pros and cons as they matter to you and come to a rational decision sometime during your third year. Radiology isn't a perfect career, and I probably would have been happy doing a lot of things, but overall I think I made the right decision for me. Not everyone's going to whistle this same tune...

For what it's worth though, "aha moments" can sometimes make great material for personal statements and deflecting questions on interviews so you'll probably want to come up with one by the time fourth year rolls around.