Why are CT residencies getting easier to get into now a days? I hear there are more spots than applicants.
*Also, was wondering if someone can post a link that lists surgical sub-specialities.
There are lots of threads dealing with the "Is CT Surgery dead" theme in the Surgical Forums. I suggest you start there because any comments I make here will be repeating what is detailed much more thoroughly there.
At any rate, some of the more common reasons for avoiding CT Surgery are:
1) the lifestyle - it can suck. We are in a lifestyle generation and not too many people want to come into the hospital in the middle of the night for patient emergencies or interrupt their schedule because someone is crashing in the cath lab or trauma bay.
Even when you don't come in, some of your post-op patients can be very sick (although it IS amazing to see a post-op CABG moved out of the unit on POD #1 and go home on POD#3. They used to stay a week or more in the unit alone!). If you have residents, they'll deal with most of the stuff, but you'll still get called and if don't have residents, guess who gets all those middle of the night phone calls.
In short, lots of emergencies, can't make plans when on call, very sick patients.
2) the money is not what it used to be - ok, so you've never made $600K per year so $300K sounds good. But the old timers are griping. Heck, even Jarvik has been reduced to doing commercials these days.
3) the "ingress" of cards, interventional cards and the damn public who is eating better and less likely to clog up their arteries and need you.
But there will always be congenital defects, valve replacements and transplants - at least for the time being; so work is still available, and the old timers are getting close to retirement age.
