Rads Lifestyle DURING residency

[RDB]

Hi all, in my quest to narrow down my choices for a future career, lifestyle during residency has become important to me. This maybe seem short sighted, but I just feel like I want to also have SOME time to enjoy my late 20s. While I understand that even in family the lifestyle is tougher than actual practice, I still believe that the residency hours in family are manageable and still allow me to pursue my interests outside of medicine.

 

So how does residency in Rads compared to IM? It would be much appreciated if someone can post a typical day and how much of that they have to themselves and how much of that down time is spent on reading.

[Yalta]

Hi all, in my quest to narrow down my choices for a future career, lifestyle during residency has become important to me. This maybe seem short sighted, but I just feel like I want to also have SOME time to enjoy my late 20s. While I understand that even in family the lifestyle is tougher than actual practice, I still believe that the residency hours in family are manageable and still allow me to pursue my interests outside of medicine.

 

So how does residency in Rads compared to IM? It would be much appreciated if someone can post a typical day and how much of that they have to themselves and how much of that down time is spent on reading.

 

Radiology is arguably the specialty that requires the most knowledge so it must be pretty intense on reading...

[RDB]

I def don't mind the reading but am curious as to how much time there is left over after the reading. I know that you can never ever truly finish reading in medicine but I think we all personally draw a line somewhere. I know the IM guys def have some crazy call and I know the rads also get call and def don't sleep but from what I've heard as a general consensus without any personal anecdotes that I can pinpoint to an individual, it tends to be more controllable and benign. Thoughts?

[Lactic Folly]

Radiology PGY-1: almost all off-service rotations, so you do whatever is required of you on that particular rotation (e.g. general surgery >> pathology). Little required reading, unless you want to.

Radiology, last half of PGY-5: eating/sleeping/breathing exam prep (as far as I can tell).

 

As for PGY 2-4, there is some variation depending on the rotation, but likely not as much as in internal medicine (busy inpatient service versus a clinic rotation with predictable hours). I arrive at the hospital between 7 - 8 am (average 7:30 am) and leave anywhere between 4:30 - 8 pm (usually 5:30ish on an average rotation). The day consists of educational rounds (morning and/or noon hour), reviewing (on your own and then with staff) and dictating cases, doing procedures, and teaching medical students from time to time. Rereading, I think your question about downtime is related more to personal time, but I'll answer for the workday - since you should be picking up as many cases as you can handle, there shouldn't be any significant downtime - if you do find yourself with nothing to do except study, that's not optimal as it suggests you aren't gaining much from being there that you couldn't do yourself at home.

 

I think a key lifestyle advantage of radiology residency compared to IM (at our school at least, but I suspect at others as well) is the flexibility of our call and vacation schedules. Our call schedule is made by the residents for the entire upcoming year in advance, and is not tied to the particular rotation that you're on (as long as you're in town). As long as every call shift is covered, and everyone does their allotted share of call, we can trade however we like.. I've done months of 1 in 3 call and months of 0-1 calls. In IM, call and vacation schedules are made month-to-month, with most ward rotations being covered by the group of trainees rotating through that month, so there is less flexibility if multiple people want the same time off. Our IM department also prefers that residents take vacation a week at a time, whereas we have more ease in taking individual days off here and there.

 

As for reading vs personal time - I think you've already alluded to the fact that this is individual and difficult to answer, e.g. family commitments, length of commute. You are training to be a consultant to nearly every specialty, and as they say, you see what you look for, and you look for what you know, so yes, you have to read. regularly. the more the better. but if you miss a day, can you make it up? sure. I won't say that you won't have time for other things that are important to you, but you can anticipate that radiology will be your primary focus during these years.

[RDB]

So lactic, would you say that the bulk of the learning really comes from being in the hospital(which is a form I'd much more prefer to learn from) with reading around the cases at night? I still have this idea that residency reading is like med reading where I'm sitting down and going through my notes and cross reffing with uptodate harrison's and robbins, but I take it its more based around the cases I saw for the day?

 

No down time seems pretty manageable on a weekday. based on the schedule you gave me as I think I'll be able to squeeze in 2 90 minute sessions of muay thai/boxing peppered throughout the week so long as I'm flexible and from that schedule it does seem like I'd be able to hit the gym and maybe go out once a week on a light week.

 

Again, I definitely want medicine to be my main focus but I just don't see my self being happy with my career and life if it was like surgery and CTU for all 5 years(i'd definitely survive it and get through it ok, but may not be the happiest) but based on that schedule it does seem much more manageable than the horror stories and seems to be quite in line with something even like family.

[Lactic Folly]

You need both - seeing as many actual cases as you can at the hospital plus reading the core texts and doing practice cases from other sources, since there's a lot that you may very well not encounter on your 4-week rotation but still need to know in detail (especially uncommon but important conditions). The general advice is to try to get through one textbook per month. I go the gym once a week except when on call.

 

Caveat: if your fund of knowledge from medical school is not as strong, you don't retain things as well, or if you're not getting good teaching during the day, you will have to work harder. It also becomes more difficult to study when you're taking a lot of call (going to bed early pre-call, obviously no studying on call, and recovering the post-call day(s) after). But call provides a lot of learning too, plus the additional motivation that comes from realizing that in a few short years, there will be no one checking over your work, so you had better be competent and safe... radiology is such an immensely broad field, you really do want to learn as much as possible in residency.

 

I will add that I also considered IM, but with time, I have more of the impression that the work in these fields is quite different. I don't know if you've done clerkship yet, but loving your work and the people you work with can have a huge impact on your enjoyment of your career and resultant quality of life... on a good rotation, the hours at the hospital can fly by, whereas short hours can't make up for a bad rotation, and I'll still feel de-energized at the end of the day. Just something to consider - IM residents aren't on CTU all the time - they do have lighter rotations, and even on CTU you won't be on call every weekend and will have days off.

[Yalta]

You need both - seeing as many actual cases as you can at the hospital plus reading the core texts and doing practice cases from other sources, since there's a lot that you may very well not encounter on your 4-week rotation but still need to know in detail (especially uncommon but important conditions). The general advice is to try to get through one textbook per month. I go the gym once a week except when on call.

 

Caveat: if your fund of knowledge from medical school is not as strong, you don't retain things as well, or if you're not getting good teaching during the day, you will have to work harder. It also becomes more difficult to study when you're taking a lot of call (going to bed early pre-call, obviously no studying on call, and recovering the post-call day(s) after). But call provides a lot of learning too, plus the additional motivation that comes from realizing that in a few short years, there will be no one checking over your work, so you had better be competent and safe... radiology is such an immensely broad field, you really do want to learn as much as possible in residency.

 

I will add that I also considered IM, but with time, I have more of the impression that the work in these fields is quite different. I don't know if you've done clerkship yet, but loving your work and the people you work with can have a huge impact on your enjoyment of your career and resultant quality of life... on a good rotation, the hours at the hospital can fly by, whereas short hours can't make up for a bad rotation, and I'll still feel de-energized at the end of the day. Just something to consider - IM residents aren't on CTU all the time - they do have lighter rotations, and even on CTU you won't be on call every weekend and will have days off.

 

How cool... Bottom line is that in residency it's all about medicine and nothing else... I'm doing 1 hour of japanese a day so I guess that when I start clerkship in august and do residency it will not be possible anymore. And sex life will suck.

[Lactic Folly]

I think the bottom line is that you can fit in what is truly important to you (e.g. surgical residents of both genders having children during residency, as I mentioned in a previous thread), but you will have to prioritize, manage your time well, and accept that spending time on one activity means less time for another. In that respect, it's not that different from juggling multiple activities and commitments while trying to maintain a high GPA in undergrad. I wasn't trying to imply that one couldn't go to the gym more than once per week, as you could conceivably go any evening you aren't on call or working late, and some do so - I just prefer one longer session on the weekends. If you made an effort to keep up Japanese, I'm sure you could maintain it to some degree on the days you are not on call. Again, it's a matter of choosing - when you wake up in the afternoon post-call, do you pursue your hobby, unwind in front of the computer/TV, run errands, go to the gym, meet friends, work on your research, go through your email inbox, try to study, or just eat and go back to sleep?