Jump to content
Premed 101 Forums

Core rotation most pertinent to radiology?


Recommended Posts

What core block, in your opinion, is most useful to have done before a radiology elective?

 

The reason I ask is because at Mac we have many early electives so early rotations matter a lot. I'm trying to decide between an early surgery core rotation or an early medicine core. Which one do you think would add more value to radiology?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think emerg will be highest yield because you'll see a mix of everything - plain film for bones, chest, and abdo, ultrasound, and CT head, chest, and abdo/pelvis. In a more specialized sense, I learned how to read a CT head on neurology (which gave me a fair bit of MR exposure too), and surgery was invaluable for looking at CT abdos. There's also resp/IM for chest imaging, and ICU is good for trying to make sense of suboptimal portables with loads of lines and tubes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If you do surgery make sure you get on to trauma service so you can see chest xrays, limb xrays, pan CT, ultrasound, etc. Very high yield and you follow their clinical course that correlate with repeat images. This is probably the best one to pick.

 

Emerge is good but it's hit or miss as it really depends on the day. Also, you won't be able to follow patient's subsequent images which are good learning opportunities, too.

 

Medicine is good but a lot of scut work and calls lol. Trauma is probably the best. When you attend the trauma you can also learn from various trauma teams how they read their own images (gen surg, ortho, uro, plastics, neuro surg, etc). You'll pick up specific pearls that may not be available on a radiology rotation.

 

Radiologists are awesome. They can literally find anything in your body anywhere.

 

Thanks guys. One last question, if you had to pick one between surgery, medicine and emerg, which would it be?

 

[i essentially have space for only one rotation before most of my electives]

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Definitely

1. ER - lots of plain films and CT scans. Good variety of cases in early training as well, which help further down the line in terms of making ddx.

 

2. Gen Sx (the ACS as joes was busy, but good learning) - Lots of CT abdo/pelvi

 

3. Neurology - a lot of head CT and MRI - but its a bit narrow in terms of early clinical experience, unless you are interested in neuro

 

4. Rad Onc, specifically if you get some time w planning CT scans and do some contouring... but again a little narrow

 

5. ... Id personally stay away from medicine, its more scut work and too many social consults to make it worth while, from an imaging point of view

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unless it's a gorilla in the lung! Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/02/19/study-most-radiologists-dont-notice-a-gorilla-in-a-ct-scan/

 

Just joking - radiologists are great!

 

Haha that's really funny!

I just wasted a couple minutes searching for the gorilla based off the hint they give that it is in the right lung... Pretty sure it is in the left lung... haha thought I was pretty blind for a couple of minutes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...