I have two intertwined parts to my current work.
What drove you to choose your career path and how did you go about getting your job?
What kind of education and experience did you need?
I pretty much stumbled into both medicine generally, and more specifically radiology.
One month into my first year of neurosurgery I realized it wasnt for me.
Not because it isnt awesome, but because I found the operations long and boring.
I had not taken into account my extremely short attention span.
4-10 hour operations were unbearable, and I knew that I would make a lousy surgeon.
I had never really thought of radiology as a career path, any more than pathology or taxidermy.
What kinds of things do you do beyond what most people see?
What do you actually spend the majority of your time doing?
In some cases I am looking for something abnormal that may account for symptoms (e.g.
Many other times the abnormality is obvious (e.g.
If a tumor, what kind of tumor is it?
What other parts of the body may be involved and need to be examined?
We perform scans as follow-up of known and treated conditions, to see if therapy is working.
For example, has the brain tumor that was resected two years ago come back?
In this sense, subspecialty medicine is still very much an apprenticeship.
What misconceptions do people often have about your job?
The greatest misconception is that we dont exist.
radiographers) and interpreted by the clinician directly (i.e.
neurosurgeon or neurologist).
What are your average work hours?
Typical 9-5 thing or not?
Full time for us is four 10 hour days a week, with weekend and on-call requirements.
What personal tips and shortcuts made your job easier?
The very nature of radiology is episodic.
Some only take a few seconds, others take up to half an hour.
In my specialty, most I guess are between the 5 and 15 minute mark.
As a result the temptation to try and multitask is fairly strong and limiting distractions is essential.
We use voice recognition with many templates for common reports, which also helps.
What do you do differently from your peers in the same profession?
Well, this might not apply to medical professions since your peers are working towards the same goal!
Yes, this is tricky.
The first is that I record almost all my predictions (e.g.
This means I can quickly look up the histology and find out if I was right.
I also collect cases and publish them on Radiopaedia.org.
Over the yearsI have amassed over 3000 caseswhich are freely available for others to learn from or teach with.
Whats the worst part of the job and how do you deal with it?
I dont really have a terrible part of my job; lucky me.
Whats the most enjoyable part of the job?
What kind of money can one expect to make at your job?
As such it is hard to put a number on it.
I guess, and dont actually know, that we earn similar amounts to many other physicians.
Is there a way to move up in your field?
One can go into administration and become head of a department.
What advice would you give to those aspiring to join your profession?
It is the best decision I ever made.
