Day in the Life

[texasmed94]

Hi all,

Thank you so much in advance for your time.

I feel I have good experience with the higher-end procedures (TIPS, PAE, etc.) IRs do, but worry I do not have a good understanding of the full range of procedures IRs do in a day/week because the faculty/attendings have been kind enough to cherry-pick higher-end procedures for me during days I have shadowed/scrubbed in.

What does a day- or a week- in the life look like for an attending IR doc? In perhaps a given week, what is the breakdown of the procedures you do (rough %s, #s, etc.)? Please also include practice setting (e.g. academic vs. community, presence/absence of mid-levels and their roles, etc.) and any other details/advice you may have regarding your average case mix.

Thank you very much again!

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[Tiger100]

Heavily depends on the type of practice that you will join.

Most IRs in the community don't do IO. TIPS is not very common and is done mostly in transplant centers. However in the community they do more PAD.

Bread and butter IR like lines, tubes, drains and biopsies are very commonly done everywhere.

 

[irwarrior]

Tremendous variability of practices and this is an area of rapid evolution

1) academics (mostly transplant related procedures (liver transplant) and so will be doing a large amount of interventional oncology/ablations/ TIPS/BRTO/biliary etc (but as above post this is not as common outside of the major academic centers with liver transplant/cancer centers )

2) Mixed jobs (either with a DR physician run group or corporate radiology ie radpartners / Sheridan etc0 (Mix of DR and IR) usually without dedicated clinic time or formal consults. Goal of group is to do low overhead , high reimbursement advanced imaging. IR is often required to garner the hospital radiology contract
(primarily biopsies, drains, fluid aspirations, vascular access type of procedures and occasional emergent bleeding or clotting case)


3) 100 percent VIR jobs
-either with a DR group or independent hospital privileges (have mix of outpatient and inpatient consults and may cover multiple hospitals)
-multi-disciplinary group (work with vascular surgeons, general surgeons and interventional cardiologists)
-office based lab/ ambulatory surgery centers (these can be via alliance with corporations or owning your own center)
(rely on PAD/ varicose veins/ fibroids/ pain/ spine interventions/ dialysis/ vascular access (ports) etc)

 

[texasmed94]

Got it, thank you both very much! Two follow-up questions:
1) In academics for example, what would you say is the approximate ratio of these "bread and butter" cases like lines, tubes, drains, and biopsies, to the "higher-end" procedures like you described above? i.e. Do these docs perform these higher-end procedures once/multiple times per day, or more like a few times a week?
2) I understand this also probably depends, but how much time per week do academic IR attendings for example typically spend in clinic?

 

[irwarrior]

This is variable based on academic site. More and more sites are doing about 1 day of clinic a week. The more clinic you do , the more elective cases you can fill your schedule with and thus less of the other type of cases you will do. Over time you will be backed up and have to schedule months in advance.