Hi /r/Radiology,
I am a current radiology resident at the Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology aka MIR. Since this year's interviews are going to be remote, I thought it would be a good idea to have a bigger online presence to talk about the program and answer any questions that people have.
As a starter, just some info about the program:
-We take about 18 residents every year, the most of any program in the nation. We generally have 2 DR/IR spots, 2 research residents, and the rest DR.
-Patient population: Like many places, we see the whole range of patients. We see a lot of oncology patients, complex surgical patients, patients with poor healthcare, weird referrals from outside of St. Louis, blunt trauma, and a pretty good deal of penetrating trauma from gunshot injuries. We have a dedicated pediatric hospital as well. We also rotate through a couple outpatient facilities, where we see the more bread and butter community hospital cases.
-Attendings: We have some amazing teachers here. One great thing is that because we are clinically focused, you work with these attendings a lot. Sometimes, you have to remind yourself who you are working with because you get used to the quality. We've also had a bunch of new younger attendings sign on, which levels the power dynamics a little bit. There aren't that many old dinosaurs stuck in their ways here.
-Conferences: One thing that I think we do particularly well is that we have a morning and noon conference every day, regardless of the rotation. Generally, the morning conferences tend to be a mix of case conference and lectures. Residents also show followup cases of their own, generally at the end of the rotation or every other week. One of the best conferences to sit in on is our monthly ED follow-up, where residents will show ten cases of all the crazy things they saw overnight (gun shot wounds, bad blunt trauma, GI bleeds, surgical mishaps, etc.).
-Call: You have about 8 weeks of call spread out over your 2/3rd years plus a possible extra 2 weeks your 4th year. You are always on with a coresident (a HUGE plus in my opinion) and with a senior resident for part of the night. Our call system is in flux because we are dealing with the pandemic but historically, you provide full preliminary reads over night (no attending overreads until the morning). One resident is generally responsible for plain films from the ED and covering our pediatric hospital while the other resident covers all CTs (ED and urgent inpatients). We do not read any MRIs, except for the very rare peds MRIs that get done emergently. As far as numbers, a typical night would be 130 plain films and about 50-60 CTs for the two residents. Call is when you learn to go faster than you are comfortable going.
-Moonlight opportunities start 2nd year. The usual contrast coverage/MRI babysitting. We have 3 locations (each with different shift lengths). You can generally expect at least one session a month which averages out to be about 1k+ extra income. We don't have any opportunities to provide wet reads for extra money but people are pretty happy with things as is.
Living in St. Louis: This is probably the biggest issue for most people. The good is that the cost of living is low (great for families), the pay is pretty good, and the food is pretty good. The bad is probably there is not as much to do as in the bigger cities and the crime rate can scare people off.
Alumni: Because we have so many graduates, our alumni network is huge. Past graduates are scattered all over the US, which makes finding a good job way easier. Also, attendings love to help you find the places that suits your needs and will pick up the phone to make a call on your behalf.
That's all off the top of my head. Please feel free to message me with any questions you have that you don't want to post here. I'll x-post this to r/medicalschool once I get the chance (need karma).
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/Radiology/comments/id0fnt/residency_iama_radiology_resident_mirwashu_ask_me/
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