Soon to be MS4 applying to residency in September. I’ve had a rough time figuring out my specialty but at this point I’ve narrowed it down to IM + subspecialty or radiology I think.
I’ve posted before but I really like the knowledge base of IM, but I kinda hate the day to day of it.
Without writing a personal statement I started gaining interest in radiology during my clinical year (second year for my school). It started with looking at the imaging of some of my patients and then evolved to me reading every imaging report I could and being blown away by the complexity of what the radiologist was saying and how it guided treatment. I still remember a very well known and accomplished trauma surgeon asking an overnight resident whether this patient needed to go to the OR based on what he thought.
I’m finally on a radiology elective now and even though everyone keeps saying “rads is super boring to watch, but great when you’re doing it” I’m still finding myself pretty engaged and fascinated most of the time. In the last two weeks I’ve seen so much cool **** (so many tumor boards, esthesioneuroblastoma, MRA lymphangiography, VHL hemangioastomas in the spinal cord, congenital cardiac imaging, and so much more). I’ve been blown away by the attendings knowledge base not just with anatomy and rare pathology, but with their knowledge of management of diseases too. Things like surgical approaches for elbow fractures, different approaches for imperforate anus. How angioinvasive fungal sinusitis presents and how this subtle finding can clue you in versus this other subtle finding. Super rare diseases I’ve never heard of before, temporal bone anatomy and how x ENT procedure will work or won’t depending on this or that, etc.
Radiology is becoming more and more intriguing to me by the day, but it still feels like a big leap of faith since we don’t really learn much about radiology in med school. Sure we get shown the most obvious pneumothorax in existence on exams, but that’s not what being a radiologist is about. Meanwhile we learn a lot about the nuance of IM in med school. The 18 different causes of hyponatremia. How an elevated creatinine could be ATN, AIN, postrenal, a vasculitis, etc. How an elevated bilirubin could be alk hepatitis, criggler-najar, hepatitis B, autoimmune hepatitis, shock liver, etc. EKGs, murmur characteristics, preload, afterload, pulmonology, immunology, infectious disease, pharmacology, etc.
At this point I don’t care about patient interactions as I could take it or leave it. I just worry about missing labs, physiology, pharmacology, ekgs, etc if I do radiology. If you told me that I would find low sodium interesting prior to med school I would have laughed at you, but I would have never known about this if I wasn’t taught it. Im sure there’s a bunch of radiology things that are super nuanced and interesting too that I haven’t been exposed and could replace physiology and pharmacology for me, but I probably won’t know unless I take a risk and do it.
Was anyone else in a similar position?
I’ve posted before but I really like the knowledge base of IM, but I kinda hate the day to day of it.
Without writing a personal statement I started gaining interest in radiology during my clinical year (second year for my school). It started with looking at the imaging of some of my patients and then evolved to me reading every imaging report I could and being blown away by the complexity of what the radiologist was saying and how it guided treatment. I still remember a very well known and accomplished trauma surgeon asking an overnight resident whether this patient needed to go to the OR based on what he thought.
I’m finally on a radiology elective now and even though everyone keeps saying “rads is super boring to watch, but great when you’re doing it” I’m still finding myself pretty engaged and fascinated most of the time. In the last two weeks I’ve seen so much cool **** (so many tumor boards, esthesioneuroblastoma, MRA lymphangiography, VHL hemangioastomas in the spinal cord, congenital cardiac imaging, and so much more). I’ve been blown away by the attendings knowledge base not just with anatomy and rare pathology, but with their knowledge of management of diseases too. Things like surgical approaches for elbow fractures, different approaches for imperforate anus. How angioinvasive fungal sinusitis presents and how this subtle finding can clue you in versus this other subtle finding. Super rare diseases I’ve never heard of before, temporal bone anatomy and how x ENT procedure will work or won’t depending on this or that, etc.
Radiology is becoming more and more intriguing to me by the day, but it still feels like a big leap of faith since we don’t really learn much about radiology in med school. Sure we get shown the most obvious pneumothorax in existence on exams, but that’s not what being a radiologist is about. Meanwhile we learn a lot about the nuance of IM in med school. The 18 different causes of hyponatremia. How an elevated creatinine could be ATN, AIN, postrenal, a vasculitis, etc. How an elevated bilirubin could be alk hepatitis, criggler-najar, hepatitis B, autoimmune hepatitis, shock liver, etc. EKGs, murmur characteristics, preload, afterload, pulmonology, immunology, infectious disease, pharmacology, etc.
At this point I don’t care about patient interactions as I could take it or leave it. I just worry about missing labs, physiology, pharmacology, ekgs, etc if I do radiology. If you told me that I would find low sodium interesting prior to med school I would have laughed at you, but I would have never known about this if I wasn’t taught it. Im sure there’s a bunch of radiology things that are super nuanced and interesting too that I haven’t been exposed and could replace physiology and pharmacology for me, but I probably won’t know unless I take a risk and do it.
Was anyone else in a similar position?
