How to Become a Radiologist – Is it Worth Becoming Radiologist?

If you are interested in sitting in a dark room, looking at x-rays, and keeping the patient clear of what is a problem, a radiologist has to do all these kinds of duties. Let’s clear the fake perspective of people’s myths of radiology and give them a clear thought about radiology. A patient comes to radiology unless and unless the disease is related to skin deep that you can’t see with your eyes. So how to Become a Radiologist?

To become a radiologist you need to complete your bachelor’s degree and after completing it need to give the MCAT exam. After giving to MCAT exam you need to go to medical school. Once you are out of medical school, you should complete the radiology program. Though we will be discussing this process in detail, let us first understand more about radiologists.

What do Radiologists do?

Radiologists are the experts in explaining the meaning of diagnostic images. They know the power of this machine, which takes a diagnostic image and treats diseases. The radiologist will guide the patient by providing a detailed explanation of where the problem is inside the body and how to treat it at an earlier stage only. Physiatrist or orthopedics may have asked their patients to do radiology of the affected part.

Why prefer radiology and the myth?

As radiology can reach the part inside the body that the doctor can reach easily without using a sharp knife by using radiology the problem can be detected easily without having a cut in the body. Some opinions about radiology are that they don’t interact with others, are shy, don’t like to talk to people, and just sit in a dark room which is not true.

They don’t separate themselves from others and don’t just sit in a dark room reading books. But they perform their duty ranging from saving a life like cancer in a deep part of the body detected by radiology that cannot be reached easily and safely.

Purpose to visit radiology

In most cases, the problem is when a doctor suggests the patient so that the doctor can look inside the body for the cause of pain. When a doctor sees the patient’s symptoms and is not able to see with their eye he suggests taking a diagnostic image of the part of the body. Diagnostic imaging is done with varieties of techniques that create an image of the structure inside our body. The most common reason to visit radiology are below:

1. Mammogram:

 A mammogram scans the disease-related breast cancer. It detects breast cancer in an earlier stage and the patient can treat her/him early in the treatable stage.

2. Ultrasound:

Ultrasound is done with the help of sound waves to produce an internal image of the organ. By ultrasound, the problem related to gallbladder, fetus diseases, and certain cancer can be detected.

3. Echocardiogram:

This patient can evaluate heart-related activities and can use the diagnosis image to find the heart disease and the irregularities in the heart.

Most common types of diagnostic imaging:

Below we have discussed different types of diagnostic imaging-

1. X-rays (plain radiography):

When we talk about x-rays they were the first types of radiology. x-rays were the first mode of radiology available for the first 50 years. The most commonly used x-rays are checking for fractures. The other use of x-rays is: Chest -X-rays can spot pneumonia. Moma Morgans are used for breast cancer and so on.

2. Ultrasound:

Ultrasound is a form of diagnosing images that uses UV waves to examine the soft tissue structures in the body. As compared to other techniques, ultrasound does not harm the patient from ionizing radiation. The common use of ultrasound is for internal bleeding, arteries, and also vascular diseases.

3. CT scans(computed axial tomography scans):

Ct scan can see the patient by a cross-section of the body. The cross-sectional image as compared to x-rays produces a more detailed and clear image for the doctor to detect the problem.

4. MRI (magnetic resonance imaging):

It is similar to ct scan, but like ct scan uses ionizing radiation MRIs use the radio wave with a magnetic field which is to be safer for the patient. A cat scan takes a minimum of 5 minutes but on the other hand, an MRI may take up to half an hour depending on the procedure.

How to Become a Radiologist?

Further, we have discussed how to become a radiologist-

Step 1: To earn a medical bachelor’s degree:

To become radiology the person must have completed a bachelor’s degree first before applying to medical schools. During the bachelor’s course, you take subjects that are useful further like biology, physics, chemistry, and English. Most chosen subjects who want to become radiology are biology, physics, specialized health science, math, etc.

Step 2: Take the MCAT:

MCAT (medical college test) is the most essential step for the application to medical school. Even if the test score is not compulsorily required for the school still you have to give the exam. If the score for the MCAT test is good have more options for medical school admissions and also it increases the chance to get selected as compared to another person who has not been given the test or does not score well on the exam.

Step 3: Complete your medical school:

After being accepted into a medical school allopathic or osteopathic, the focus on medicine started. In the era of the degree, you will learn the fundamental skills and knowledge that are needed to become a doctor of any kind. While doing the 4-year degree in medicine, you’ll select the specialized radiology you are interested in. The first 3 years are mostly common to all students of medicine, but in the last year, you have to choose the specific electives that will lead you to radiology.

Step 4: Complete the radiology residency program:

It is based on a maximum of 4 to 5 years in which the resident doctor has to practice under the wing of the senior radiologist to complete a radiology residency program. During this period the radiologist will have live experience of how to deal with the cases and attend the lectures and study the reading materials.

Salary:

Salary varies from person to person based on education, certification, area of working place, and working experience. Also, we can say that radiology is one of the most well-earning medical fields. Various salaries according to the percentile in the US are below

percentilesalary
10th percentile radiologist salary$322405
25th percentile radiologist salary$373390
50th percentile radiologist salary$429390
75th percentile radiologist salary$496690
90th percentile radiologist salary$557963

Conclusion:

Radiology is a highly paid profession in the field of medicine. Radiology is a great technique used by a radiologist, as now the doctor can find the problem easily and the patient can get treated in the stage where he/she gets well soon.

William Christie

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