Specialties that use cool technology?

[0nsp]

I have been trying to figure out what field I should apply for for CaRMS. It finally hit me on Friday when I went down to see the ABACUS in the UofA hospital basement.

 

ABACUS is a cardiac cath lab with 2 powerful magnets that allows remote cardiac catheterization using the magnetic field. The interventionist only needs to make the initial incision and catheter insertion, and then can do the rest safely under fluroscopy from behind the glass shield via computer/magnetic control. It's the only one in Canada.

 

Everytime I see cool use of technolgy like this in medicine I get super excited and giddy.

 

This also happend (my giddyness, I mean) on a rad onc elective, where they were talking about the cyberknife, A robotic arm that delivers precise doses of radiation to a target area from various angles and corrects for respiratory motion.

 

My question is, what medical specialties get to work with this kind of technology?

 

I've been thinking Rad onc, interventional cardiology and radiology. Any others?

 

Thanks for any help and advice!

[crackers]

The DaVinci robot gets used in cardiac (beating heart) surgery. AESOP is a remote control surgery system used in Video-assisted thorascopic surgery (VATS) in thoracics. There are 64-slice CT, cardiac MR, and all sorts of fun gadgets in interventional radiology.

 

Significant caveat:

time to get there.

 

Cardiac is 6 years residency.

Thoracic is 5 years gen surg + 2 years thoracics fellowship.

Interventional Radiology is 5 years radiology + 2-3 years fellowship

Interventional Cardiology is 3 years Internal Medicine, 3 years cardiology, and 2-3 years interventional cardiology.

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Just to clarify, Interventional Rads fellowships vary: 1) some US interventional fellowships offer a 1-year fellowship, although many offer 2; 2) interventional neurorads fellowships are very interesting, but follow fellowship training within a neurorads fellowship so this can stretch to 3-4 years in length.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[bones]

Hey 0nsp, I think you were hoping to hear about more of the imaging technologies you were talking about before, but I just wanted to add that I think there's a bunch of specialties in general that use cool technology (as I'm sure you are no doubt aware).

 

For others reading this, here's what I know: Ophthalmology uses lasers, and now the U of A has that state-of-the-art computer simulator for training ophtho residents. ENT surgeons seem to use a lot of cool gizmos from what I saw: "real-time" CT(?) in two planes as the surgeon works so you can see where exactly in the nasal passages the surgeon is working, a helmet with a cool blue light chord running into it, etc. And I've heard a urologist talk about how much laser-guided and laproscopic techniques are constantly changing how they perform their surgeries.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if neat technology is making (or will soon make) its way into more and more medical specialties, notwithstanding the price tag and inability/unwillingness for our system to foot the bill.

[0nsp]

Thanks for all the replies guys. Keep the suggestions coming!

 

To crackers:

I know that any of these paths is a really long road sicne I've done electives in thoracics, radiology and cardiology, and have talked to residents as well. Unfortunately, I did not get to see AESOP when doing VATS. I also know that for sure I don't want to do surgery.

 

To ffp:

I forgot about EPS, which I was interested in on a rotation a while ago. The biggest caveat is not so much the time as it is the fact that I'm not too keen on a) 3 years of internal med and having to match AGAIN (cardio being one of the toughest subspecialties) (and I really don't like general internal med)

 

to kirsteen:

I sent you a pm a short while ago. I'm not sure if you got it. Thanks!

 

to bones:

you mentioned a lot of raelly good possibilities which I hadn't really considered. The only drawback to those is the fact that I dont want to do surgery, especially the 22 hr long ENT surgeries. I had considered optho, which I think would be a fantastic mix of technology, patient contact and some procedural work, but I figure that it's wayyy to competitive and being halfway done my 3rd year with no electives or research, I'd be wasting time and money applying.

 

All in all a good list that directly answers my question regarding technology and medicine. Like i said, keep them coming!

[Kirsteen]

Hi there Onsp,

 

Just a couple of points in response to a few things noted above:

 

1) Regarding deselecting a career path because it involves another match, unfortunately, many of the options with associated cool techie bits do require either a match or some sort of competition for spots. This not only applies to cardiology, but also, interventional rads and interventional neurorads. (The latter offers some lovely little bits of technology and if you ever have the chance to attend an interventional rads conference, you'll see even more via the unbelievable displays on which the various tech companies spend huge amounts of cash.)

 

2) Competitiveness: I'd argue that there's a correlation between cool technology, efficient procedures and earning potential. Given this, there is often a concomitant correlation between careers with cool technology and competitiveness. Certainly, I shied away from Rads initially because of the competitiveness, but you know, the year I applied, I also applied to Gen Surg, and that ended up being one of the more competitive specialties that year as well. So unless you're willing to opt for Medical Microbio, Medical Genetics or Path, I'd think twice about nixing a career choice due to its competitiveness.

 

3) No, I don't recall seeing a pm from you. If you have any specific questions, feel free to send a message over. I'd be happy to help.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[0nsp]

Kirsteen, you've got PM!