- Joined
- Apr 16, 2004
- Messages
- 4,684
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My wife and I were recently reminiscing about my Match Day ~ 15 years ago. The whole match season was extremely stressful - I had applied to virtually every Rad Onc residency program. The places where I interviewed were pretty well dispersed throughout the country meaning that our future careers and family would be largely predicated by where i winded up. Getting an email confirmation that I matched on that Monday was a tremendously affirming experience. When I read where I matched I was so excited and happy that I nearly fell off the stage. A lot of celebrating that night with colleagues, family and friends.
At the time, my only exposure to Rad Onc was through large academic institutions. My mentors and advisors were peerless in their clinical acumen and drove a lot of the research in the field forward. What they didn't know was the nuts and bolts of private practice - RCM, Finance, clinical operations, marketing, and compensation. Their knowledge biases reflected on my own and I recall not only thinking I would be a hard-core academician for the rest of my life but that any advice I got from private practice physicians would be fairly worthless.
Of course, time changes all things and I am now in a private practice and have experienced the great joy of that. The years have also taught me to be more introspective about myself and less judgmental and hostile to others' opinions. In that vein, if I put myself into the shoes of the medical students who just matched into Rad Onc, I can also feel their joy. They too have been surrounded by academicians and subjected to their same biases and, by extension, likely wary and hostile to what is expressed here on SDN. Please keep in mind that while I hope for their success and our future as a specialty, they are ultimately pawns in this whole process. The chairs and academicians who refuse to take action are not going to be the ones paying the price 5-10 years down the road.
Please keep this in mind when you post.
At the time, my only exposure to Rad Onc was through large academic institutions. My mentors and advisors were peerless in their clinical acumen and drove a lot of the research in the field forward. What they didn't know was the nuts and bolts of private practice - RCM, Finance, clinical operations, marketing, and compensation. Their knowledge biases reflected on my own and I recall not only thinking I would be a hard-core academician for the rest of my life but that any advice I got from private practice physicians would be fairly worthless.
Of course, time changes all things and I am now in a private practice and have experienced the great joy of that. The years have also taught me to be more introspective about myself and less judgmental and hostile to others' opinions. In that vein, if I put myself into the shoes of the medical students who just matched into Rad Onc, I can also feel their joy. They too have been surrounded by academicians and subjected to their same biases and, by extension, likely wary and hostile to what is expressed here on SDN. Please keep in mind that while I hope for their success and our future as a specialty, they are ultimately pawns in this whole process. The chairs and academicians who refuse to take action are not going to be the ones paying the price 5-10 years down the road.
Please keep this in mind when you post.