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thoughts on combined DRNM residency? (cross post from residents forum)
As the title says, I posted this in the residents’ forum as well, but very interested in people’s answers.
Hi all, hope you’re doing well. I’m an MS4 (american allopathic school) currently applying into rads and was wondering what people’s thoughts were on the (relatively) new combined 16 month DR/NM pathways available at some institutions? Is it worth it? Does it make you marketable? Can you practice DR and NM?
I think it would be awesome to do DR/NM and then a body imaging fellowship (some programs advertise that combined residents do DR fellowships afterwards). Is this feasible/worthwhile?
Sorry for all the questions, just very curious about this. Hope you’re all staying safe.
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1 Reply
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I would not use this as a factor in choosing a residency at all. The bigger places that have nuclear fellowships probably all offer this by now, and they also have no nuclear radiology fellows for reasons that will become obvious to you once you get into radiology residency.
Marketable? That might be a strong word. I have known a few residents who choose this thinking it will be, but they tend to have second thoughts as they move through residency.
The only way I can see it as marketable is if you had a job in mind who wants you to be nuclear trained (i.e. they need someone to handle the regulations aspect of maintaining an NM section), and they want you to be NR fellowship trained. Then you could bypass fellowship and just go to work for that group. If you really like body imaging (and continue to do so), then I would table this issue and come back to it later.
It probably comes down to how you want to spend your last year. If you like NM and want to avoid a fellowship, then it is a good idea. The trouble is that nobody really likes NM, and nuclear medicine in general is poorly marketable. The market got overrun with NM residency graduates who can’t do the rest of radiology, and they only have these residency programs for the free resident labor (mostly IMG’s).
