The *true* lifestyle of a radiologist...

[bigfrank]

Hi, every radiologist I talk to in private practice says that their lifestyle is substantially busier than what is perceived by med. students. I talked to one female radiologist who said she liked her job but she was on call almost "24 hours a day, 7 days a week." From my conversations, this is the general rule and not the exception.

I don't think it makes sense that you will be able to work 9-5 M-F and make $500K/year, whatever field of medicine you choose. Most of the radiologists I talk to are on IN-hospital call q3/q4. That is busy.

Can anyone comment or shed some light on this?

Thanks, Frank

P.S. The people I've been talking to are NOT in an academic community (i.e., NO residents, fellows, etc.).

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[Jim Picotte]

Yep, with the current environment most hospitals are expecting 24 hour 7 day a week IN-HOUSE coverage from radiologists. That, combined with the current shortage of radiologists have lead to the incredible salaries that we hear about, but the price for all the extra money is a lot more time and a lot more call. It does depend on what group you're in as well and if it's a big enough group, you'll still have plenty of time off.

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

bigfrank,

Its definitely not 9-5 for $500,000. I've rotate at a couple of hospitals with private rads groups and no residents. Depending on the number of partners, they are on call q4-q10. If you join a bigger group, your call will be less frequent. At one hospital, the radiologists on call only reads emergent CTs and ultrasounds, no regular x-rays. When I was on ER at this hospital there were maybe 6-10 of these studies from 5 am to 7 am. That is not bad considering they take call from home via a computer hookup and each of these studies takes 5-20 minutes to read at most. That being said, it is definitely getting busier with more and more clinicians ordering CTs, which are getting cheaper and quicker.

The good thing about rads jobs in this market are the offers 10 or more weeks of vacation many residents are getting.

Academic radiologist have the best life from what I have seen. They almost never get called after they leave when on call. Of course they make 1/3 of private rads, so its a trade off.

 

[pags]

Call is very practice dependent. The biggest group in CT has their non-interventional partners on call, at most, twice a month. On call days, they are in house until 10pm and take the rest of their call from home work station.

 

[MacGyver]

about these home work stations...

Is it a straight up internet authentication? Or a VPN or ISDN line?

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

I'm not sure about the connection, but I think it is not just a regular hookup. I have read that radiologists receive one of the high resolution computer work stations (which cost a bundle) to use at home. The image quality needs to be up to par, and a regular computer wouldn't do. I think, given the huge files these images represent that they would have to use a high speed connection.

 

[Voxel]

I think many places use dial-in over ISDN lines. I think that there is big concern over security issues and compliance with HIPAA. Once these issues are resolved, you will see access to images over cable and dsl or even T1/shared T1 for sure.

As for moniture resolution, if the group can get away with only reading emergent CTs or MRs, then a regular (CRT) monitor will do. However, if you are reading digital plain films (CR) then you need a 1K (resolution) monitor, which can cost about $3-5,000 per monitor. There are also 2K monitors, but a study was done that showed no clinical difference between using 2K vs 1K monitors.

 

[MacGyver]

I could understand DSL/cable which is generally available to the public.. but a T1/T3 line is pretty expensive to drop to a private home. I guess they figure its worth the cost however.

Are these monitors plasma based or LCD flat panels?

 

[Voxel]

No, these monitors are Cathode-Ray-Tube based (CRT).

 

[Voxel]

The biggest private practice group in Connecticut also has a radiology residency program. So if you are lucky enough to be in private practice and have a residency program then you have the best of both, less call and private practice money. But the trade off is that someone in the group has to teach residents and read them out (as this takes dedication and time).

 

[Whisker Barrel Cortex]

Voxel,

Thats my ideal practice. I really like teaching and really like the life of a private practice doc. I hope to end up at a private group with a residency program. Its the best of both worlds.

 

[pags]

Originally posted by Voxel:
The biggest private practice group in Connecticut also has a radiology residency program. So if you are lucky enough to be in private practice and have a residency program then you have the best of both, less call and private practice money. But the trade off is that someone in the group has to teach residents and read them out (as this takes dedication and time). I mentioned during my interview at Hartford, that I would love to be in a private practice but still would want to teach residents and medical students. One attending said, "Well, that's what we do here." Not a bad deal...

I guess they liked me too. Go Huskies!

 

[ItsGavinC]

As usual, the norms vary greatly depending on geographic location, etc.

The group here in my town consists of 9 docs and they have quite the optimum lifestyle. As was stated before, call is dependent on the practice.

Also, two of the docs in that group do their readings @ home through a 56k modem! They constantly complain because of the slow DL times -- can you blame them?

-G

 

[xraydoc]

With the current job situation you can get just about any life-style that you desire. I don't know how long this will last. For myself, I have about one day of call a month where I get called about an average of one time (MRI). Only one weekend out of 6 and pretty much 9-5 with academic time for just north of 300K.

But you can pretty much choose your life style and income these days.