Good fields for math/tech monkeys

[Techmonkey]

Are there any recommended fields in medicine where an interest in math or tech would be productive? The reason I'm asking is that although medicine is one of my main interests, heaven forfend I like texas holdem, tech and math too. I can hear the nerd/geek cries now.

Am considering rads/radonc/ophth as I hear that they are one of the more techy specialities. Just trying to play to my interests/strengths. Any suggestions?

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[14022]

Radiology and radiation oncology....nerd

 

[DeLaughterDO]

second rads and would like to add interventional rads as well.. you get to play with much more tech in interventional... and you get to stab people still <-- makes you still feel like a physician rather than a technician looking at pictures.

jd

 

[lateness]

radiology Onc.. for sure

 

[surg]

Definitely rad onc and radiology would work. Nuclear medicine might be a good fit as well. All three share a heavy math component and tech component.

Consider pathology perhaps. All the new stains and immuno tests are very tech oriented and a lot of the research is math oriented (or at least statistics oriented).

thinking out of the box: ped surgery has some cool tech components with many ped surgeons leading the way on lap and robotic surgery in their institutions. Also you get to show off your math skill since every kid has to have their drug dosages and physiology parameters recalculated to their size and problem.

 

[2ndyear]

Anesthesia! I do derivatives and integrals every day. We use equations to guide our care (alveolar gas, blood loss, fluid balance, and not a day goes by that I don't think about dV/dP in my head). We have complex machines that we have to troubleshoot on the spot. Monitors are continually evolving (BIS, continous cardiac output from a-lines, non-invasive beat to beat BP) and you can really have an impact on the field if you come from an engineering background in this respect.

And these are not mentioning our other cool toys, the fiberoptic bronchoscope, TEE, and ultrasound. Awake fiberoptic intubation is fun, and if you grew up with playing N-64 this will definately appeal to you. In our generation TEE will replace the swan-ganz catheter, and it's pretty cool to use. A very powerful tool. Don't forget ultrasound guided line placement AND ultrasound guided peripheral nerve blocks. Blocks that selectively numb relatively small regions of the body with continuous catheters are even being used in Iraq on our wounded soldiers right now. Check out www.asahq.org

 

[CasaElGato]

Though perhaps a bit on the touchy feely side, PM&R has hi tech wheelchairs, artifical limbs, use of robotics, etc. The ibot wheelchair is cool. It has 3 gyroscopes in it. Lots of toys. And gait analysis labs do research regarding work simplification, physics, etc.

ibot

Renal does a lot of calculations too but they are not calculus level at all, if I have to calculate another FENa...

 

[Gfunk6]

RadOnc.

In what other field do you work daily with linear accelerators? Also, the use of higher energy particles is becoming more prevalent and cyclotrons are being built all over the country. You can happily tell the patient that the machine that is treating them takes up a whole city block . . .

Plus you have radiosurgery -- the ability to ablate intra- and extra-cranial targets without a scalpel. GammaKnife does this using 201 cobalt sources that intersect at a single point. CyberKnife does this by putting a minuature linear accelerator on a robotic arm to allow more degrees of freedom in pointing anywhere in the body.

Also, you have the various software-based algorithims required to calculate optimal dose distributions, beam/gantry angles, and to avoid nearby critical strucutures. You work daily with PhD level physicists and medical dosimetrists.

Most importantly, the field advances fast and there are always new things on the horizon. Unlike, say Med/Peds, textbooks that are 10 years old will not do you much good.

 

[Blade28]

People liking biomechanics and basic physics also may enjoy ortho.

 

[NRAI2001]

Plastic surgery.

You have to do a lot of math counting money all day.

 

[tec]

Two members of my class were math majors in undergrad, one of us did IT in our previous career, and both of us chose neuro. A lot of the same logical thinking is used in both. It depends if you want to do more of the hands-on or the thinking aspect.