Bummed about my prelim spot. For those of you that did hard intern years...

[TUGM]

While RadMans whole chicken little routine is getting tiring to everyone I'm sure... A lot of the rads I have talked to during my prelim year have echoed the sentiment about the massively increasing volume, increasing rad spots in the match, loopholes for foreign physicians to get in without going through the match, etc, etc.

I think it would certainly be proactive to an extent for the up and coming rads (yes, that's us) to start thinking about these issues. If we don't take it upon ourselves to fix these issues then who will? After all, it's so typical for doctors to have the me against the world attitude.... we're brought up and nurtured in a pressure cooker of competition from the minute we get to medical school. Never learning the skills of uniting to achieve a goal.

With that said, my surgical prelim sucks... I'm way better at reading films/CTs than I was when I started though, so there's that.

1. Sorry you're having to do a surgical prelim... hang in there; if anything, you'll be stronger for it.
2. I hear a lot of concern on a lot of forums and from a lot of people out in the field. Medicine is changing, and the older generation of physicians are essentially trying to make as much money as possible with the hopes of retiring as soon as they can. I have been thinking about these situations a lot recently, and am growing quite restless. Our senior physicians don't really care about the younger generation, our governing bodies (ACR, AMA, etc.) do nothing for us professionally. In fact, often times, they sell out American medical graduates with hopes of cheaper night coverage by hiring foreign grads who accept less money for more hours. WE, the new generation of physicians, must come together to form NEW leadership and fight for OURSELVES, because no one else is going to do it. Radman is definitely being chicken little, but not everything he says is completely off the mark. Things are going to be look fairly dire for us if we leave these things up to people who lost touch with medicine and are more involved in furthering their own political agendas. Being a physician used be a calling... the noble profession. We must work to preserve that notion.

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[ratherbefishing]

I am 4 weeks into my prelim year at a hard IM program. I am trying to get what I can out of this year, but I am definitely looking forward to being done. This thread made me feel better that I'm not alone in counting the days.

 

[Twiggidy]

I'm an anesthesiology attending and must admit I roam through the radiology thread (mostly because I'm looking for a possible change in career). I just wanted to give all you new interns some words of encouragement.

Keep your head up.

Intern year is hard no matter where you go or what you do (Surg vs Med). There is a definitely a light at the end of the tunnel, you just have to get to that light. Do you best to make friends with fellow interns that are going into other specialties so that you guys can share battle stories as this will make coping with the year much easier. It's basically free therapy and you're all in the same boat. It can be depressing because many times the things you're doing have nothing to do with what you'll be doing the rest of your career, but that's part of the game. You're a PA/NP with an MD for a year. Once it hits Jan 1 you'll feel better because in the words of Bon Jovi, you'll be "halfway there". The when it hits May you'll be smiling because you're almost done. In June, you're on cloud 9 because it's basically over and you start planning for the specialty you decided on.

Just work hard, try hard, show up on time, and complete your tasks. That's the basics of intern year. No one expects you to be Dougie Howser (showing my age. Google it). You guys can do it. Just think, in 11 months time, you'll be a radiologist and you'll NEVER have to do PGY 1 again.

 

[rule out normal]

Prelim year really does eventually end, and you really will be in radiology. It's all temporary. Be forewarned, the last two weeks will suck, especially if you're on a wards month.

 

[Roadhouse]

Intern year blows. I was in your shoes last year. I hated being there dealing with bs all day on the floors. My advice: just show up, fly under the radar, and go home. It'll end soon enough. Coming to work everyday and learning rads is a million times more enjoyable.

 

[elegantorchid]

I was dreading intern year until I found out how hard it was to even get a spot of prelim IM program... I looked at the stats last night. According to Main Match Results PDF that they have it appears theres only 1,928 IM prelim spots with over 3,200 US applicants alone. So that means 1/3 of us go without a spot... or go into surgery from prelim. That's scaring the crap out of me. Now I'm just hoping I can even get a medicine prelim...