Advice appreciated : Radiology program

[sarakj]

Hi every one

I have couple of qs from the people who have experience on the Radiology or more competitive programs :

If I do all my electives in Radiology, would that put me on disadvantage compare to some who has done elective in different programs

Do I really need to have back up program for the Radiology? Would people always have couple of program listed on their application

If I do ENT and internal medicine electives, would that be strange to the radiology program directors ??

Thank you so much

Sara kj

Meds 2010, U of O

[blinknoodle]

Most medical schools require there to do breadth across electives, so it certainly would not look odd if someone had 4 weeks in something other than radiology.

[Lactic Folly]

If you do all your electives in radiology, I think you would need to demonstrate that you had explored other avenues sufficiently to make a well-informed decision to be sure that radiology was for you. Although it is a competitive specialty, radiology programs do not generally expect that candidates have done all their electives in radiology, at the expense of developing more well-rounded medical graduates. My advice would be to do enough electives to make sure you know enough about the field and that it is for you, and to see the programs you are particularly interested in (taking into consideration which programs prefer that you have done an elective at their location, and which programs have no such preference), and to use the remainder of your elective time to explore other areas of interest.

 

You don't necessarily need a backup *program*, but you should have a backup *plan* in the case you do not match to your desired specialty, whether that's to rank an alternate specialty in the 1st round, or to go unmatched and try again in the 2nd round, or even in the following year.

 

Due to the breadth of medicine that radiology encompasses, electives in the majority of clinical specialties will be relevant. More clinical knowledge is always beneficial. And as blinknoodle mentioned, schools are instituting policies that require students to have done electives in, say, 3 different areas of medicine before graduating.

[Kirsteen]

Due to the breadth of medicine that radiology encompasses, electives in the majority of clinical specialties will be relevant. More clinical knowledge is always beneficial. And as blinknoodle mentioned, schools are instituting policies that require students to have done electives in, say, 3 different areas of medicine before graduating.

Hi there,

 

There are specialties which are particularly reliant on imaging to aid in diagnosis and treatment, e.g., ortho, respirology, emerg and gen surg, to name a few. (In our internship year we were required to complete rotations in all of these except respirology, although that would have been a good idea.) If you choose electives in any of these imaging-rich specialties which are also on your list of specialties that could be an acceptable CaRMS back-up for you, then that could be positive.

 

As for using all of your elective time in radiology, I can't really speak to how programs feel about that as I wasn't in that situation when I applied and I haven't yet participated in the rads applicants assessment process. Certainly, however, you'd be advantaged in two ways if you took this approach: 1) your career aspiration would be undeniable, i.e., your application would not be among those where there is any doubt that rads might be a back-up instead of a primary career choice; 2) you would have more opportunity to check out more rads programs and more opportunity for them to do the same to you.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[street_med]

If I do all my electives in Radiology, would that put me on disadvantage compare to some who has done elective in different programs

 

 

Just adding to what others have already mentioned, I believe most schools are looking for candidates who have done electives in a variety of fields. I was told by a certain program director that their program is looking for people who not only have demonstrated interest in radiology but who also have looked at other fields to make sure rads is what they want.

 

hope that makes sense!

[sarakj]

Thank you all very much for the great information.. i will consider every ones in put in my decision making.

best of luck

Sara Kj ,meds 2010, U of O

[monkey799]

Just adding to what others have already mentioned, I believe most schools are looking for candidates who have done electives in a variety of fields. I was told by a certain program director that their program is looking for people who not only have demonstrated interest in radiology but who also have looked at other fields to make sure rads is what they want.

 

hope that makes sense!

 

All programs like candidates who are well rounded, but also who has shown a particular interest in their program through an elective.

 

This is a hard decision in that the more programs you go, the more commitment you show to those program - hence more likely to get an interview. At the expense of being very narrow minded med student.

 

Hence you need to ask yourself, as all programs ask when evaluating candidate?

 

(1) is this person a good student?

(2) is this person committed to radiology and our particular program?

(3) is this person a good fit to our program with the existing residents and staff members?

 

It's a balancing act, and you need to make your decisions wisely.

[Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

I know a faculty member (who's on a program selection committee) who gave us a little monologue on how that program selects CaRMS applicants for residency spots. He called it the 3 As:

 

1) Affability

2) Availability

3) Aptitude

 

This is how he ranked these three selection factors (and why):

 

1) Aptitude: 5%; "After all, once they're in medical school we know that they've dropped through the filters that proves they're trainable."

2) Availability: 10%; "Do they really want to be here? If they don't really want to be at this centre, then what's the point?"

3) Affability: 85%; "We want to ensure that they're a good fit with the people that we've got. I don't want to work with someone I don't like. It's just not good for anyone, nor the program, overall."

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[ikant100]

thanks Kirsteen! I love mnemonics hehe..