question about internship

[badasshairday]

If somebody is interested in radiology to ultimately do IR, is a surgical prelim year worth doing?

Question for current residents/fellows/attendings.

Did you go into Rads knowing you wanted to do IR? If so, did you do/consider a surgical prelim?

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[Gvataken]

I was pretty sure I wanted to do IR, when I entered residency. I thought of doing a surgical internship but I decided ultimately to do IM. I think either one of those if you get to make independent decisions and get to do alot rather than just taking orders will be of benefit. I personally believe that transitional may not give you as much autonomy and you may end up just acting like a glorified 4th year student. Good luck

 

[phatfarm]

I was tempted to do a prelim surgery year, but wound up doing a transitional year that included 3-4 months of surgery. There were no surgical residents at my hospital so we were 1st assist on every case. Made for an awesome year. The skills carried over to IR. But I agree that if you are hands-on as an intern, you will be fine. Try to put in as many lines as you can in the unit.

 

[werewethere]

I was tempted to do a prelim surgery year, but wound up doing a transitional year that included 3-4 months of surgery. There were no surgical residents at my hospital so we were 1st assist on every case. Made for an awesome year. The skills carried over to IR. But I agree that if you are hands-on as an intern, you will be fine. Try to put in as many lines as you can in the unit.

I think the key point is the ability to be independent and have a high quality, hands on experience. So, when evaluating preliminary and transitional years, try to talk to people who recently trained in the program and find out what they get to do, both in terms of procedures and patient management. A surgical year will not help you for IR if you turn into a scut monkey, and neither will an IM year if all you're managing are social issues. That's not to say that your work will always be useful to your future aspirations, but if a good portion of it isn't, you're wasting your time.