IR and Breast?

[Fortyniner85]

What do y’all think about a dual fellowship in IR and Breast? Most DR hate reading breast, so you would make yourself super marketable to private practice groups who need you to do ~40% DR anyways. Also could transition to full time breast (hardest to chillest) when you get tired of wearing lead and frying your brain. There are plenty of guys at my home institution who’ve done IR/body fellowships, so the idea of a dual fellowship ain’t that crazy.

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[GoPelicans]

Theoretically possible, I doubt anybody interested in one of those subspecialties would ever want to do the other.

 

[guytakingboards]

I think they're different enough to say 'pick a lane'. IR and body are very complementary. A good IR needs solid body skills. Breast and IR are very different. And if you're a breast trained rad right now, you're gonna be shoe-horned into a lot of breast time cuz that market is crazy right now. Not the best thing for a fresh also-IR trained rad.

Word of caution to those looking to keep a full gamut of skills: it's great for the group but it can really drive your schedule in a way you don't want. If you're IR/breast trained you're gonna get a ton of breast time...... when you probably want a lot of IR time fresh out of training to solidify/build your skills.

I'm in a large group that does mostly sub-spec work. I do 90+ percent of my time in neuro. The old guys in my section don't do anything but outpatient neuro (sans procedures). I get thrown all over town covering OP neuro, OP neuro with spine procedures, hospital neuro seats and even OP general/body slots. My flexibility (to the group) hurts me, cuz i have to seats I wouldn't otherwise want to cover. Not saying that might not appeal to some people, but its something to consider.

 

[Tiger100]

Pick only one. PP is about at least 50% your subspecialty and the rest is general radiology. No room to do both.

 

[IRattending2021]

You can totally do high end ir and breast imaging. I know someone who does. To that person their specialty is IR (IR trained with clinic). They strive to be a safe and competent breast imager but since they aren’t fellowship trained in breast, they don’t really do breast MR or advanced stuff.

In many places you can practice mammo without the fellowship

 

[Tiger100]

You can totally do high end ir and breast imaging. I know someone who does. To that person their specialty is IR (IR trained with clinic). They strive to be a safe and competent breast imager but since they aren’t fellowship trained in breast, they don’t really do breast MR or advanced stuff.

In many places you can practice mammo without the fellowship

Do you need fellowship to read breast MR?

what is "advanced stuff" in breast imaging?

Can't you practice body in most places without fellowship? What about Neuro? Chest?

 

[Taurus]

Pick one and get great at it. At the end of the day, you are held to the level of the specialist, ie, IR or breast fellowship trained rad. Practically, every case I called to be an expert witness in the rad was practicing in an area they did not do a fellowship in.

Here is an example of IR who lost a $7M breast malpractice lawsuit.

https://amp.thestate.com/news/local/article56055575.html

 

[vm26]

Do you need fellowship to read breast MR?

what is "advanced stuff" in breast imaging?

Can't you practice body in most places without fellowship? What about Neuro? Chest?

Agree with the above. Most of PP is general rad work. Breast is hot right now so "fellowship trained" breast imagers are in demand. I'm not fellowship trained in breast but do rotate through the dept. Having worked with both fellowship/non-fellowship trained breast fellows, clearly the fellowship trained breast imagers are more knowledgeable. However it's hard to quantify what this means in the real world in terms of pt outcomes. Also major confounding factor is that many breast imagers work exclusively in their subspecialty.