A lot of people wonder why I even thought to do Rad Onc as an elective. Truth? Sometimes I wonder too, but in reality I have good reasons.
1. I really enjoyed my time doing surgery-oncology during my surgery block. And by that I mean I enjoyed my time in clinic more so than my time in the OR. Rad Onc has a similar way of seeing their outpatients -- mostly acute care revolving around their treatment, and very few well visits 6 years later.
2. The people I know who do rad onc seem happy.
3. Lots of MD-PhDs in the field = high proportion nerds. I like nerds.
4. The biology is interesting.
5. You can do interesting Epi research. You can do clinical trials, survivorship studies, emerging therapy trials, sociology research, medical ethics, cost-effectiveness research. It's right on the cutting edge of both medical and radiation oncology technologies and therapies, right on the cutting edge of what we know about tumors. You name it, it has it.
6. There are interesting new technologies.
7. It is procedure oriented, yet the procedures do not involve standing for 6 hours straight with no eating, drinking, peeing, moving, or scratching. The procedures instead involve data. I like data.
8. What you do helps people, and the side effects are usually manageable. And the benefit is usually apparent relatively quickly.
Anyway, lots of people think rad onc is all boring physics. First of all, physics isn't boring. Second, they have staff who are trained biophysicists do the boring part (who get paid a boat load to do it, but that is another story entirely). Most of my day today was spent doing ongoing treatment checks. Tomorrow I'll be in a different clinic seeing new patients and coordinating care with the med onc doctors. Later I might do some CT planning sessions. There are inpatient consults as well.
So I don't know. It's been pretty enjoyable so far. A nice group of people. Pretty relaxed. Interested in teaching. Happy. I don't know if this is what I want to do with my life, but I can definitely see the appeal.
5 Pearls of Wisdom:
about the biophysicists part, so you can still be a radio oncologist even if you almost failed physics in college?
I actually don't know much about Rad Onc, but it sounds like there is a real fit for your here.
I got a smile out of #3, I like nerds too :)
CG -- You're in med school. Somehow I doubt you "almost failed" physics. What'd you get? A B+?
Old MD girl, I can smile about it now, but man that semester was probably the most stress full time in my life. I failed the 1st midterm as in one the lowest grades in the class (a low F). I went to see the professor (because it was after the drop deadline) and he told me that I could still pass the class if I could show significant improvement. So I worked my ass off for the second midterm and for the final. I ended up with a B- even though I think my actual grade might have been lower, but I had shown significant improvement so I think he bumped it up.
Physics is a subject that I could never quite grasp. I basically just did a lot of practice problems and memorized how to solve the more common questions asked.
A couple years ago, I watched a DVD of radiology treatment that was being offering at Stanford, and I thought it was really interesting, but the whole physics element kinda scared me away
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