What are the steps to becoming a radiologist and is it worth it?

I want to become a Radiologist! Help point me to the right direction?

• I'm age 22 and have not gone to college as of yet, I spent 4 years of my life helping my parents run they're small business and now that things have become stable enough I am able to focus more on own wishes. A few years back I had met a wonderful friend of mines that is a Radiologist now (she was about 5-7 years older) I have lost contact with that person and am trying very hard to get that back. Here's my situation: I have been out of school for some time now (Grad '05) and I will be taking community college (KBCC) this fall and my major is Biology. I know you do not really NEED a science as a major but I did my best in Biology in high school I thought I could start off with that in community college and hopefully transfer to a 4 year college with the same major (Hunter College in NYC). The internet is a grand place with a lot of information. Trying to find one thing I end up with so many different answers and short cuts that I don't believe will help me. I'm not the brightest star in the sky and from the friend I had she gave up everything to focus on becoming a Radiologist. It's a wonderful job from the times I was in the hospital and met other doctors to the stories my friend use to tell me about. I know becoming a doctor itself is almost as hard as becoming the President of the USA if you aren't completely committed but I know if I put all my heart and mind (and crazy amount of money for schools) to it I can. Are there any pick me up books to get me on the road? If/when I attend Hunter College (or any other 4year college) where should I go after that? Are there any better colleges or Universities in NYS anywhere else? I don't want to aim too high with my dreams, I'm aiming high enough so I don't completely lose myself if I should fail the first time at getting into a good school. I want something I know I can attain if I try. I don't believe i can get into Harvard so I wont even try for that I want something more realistic. When I get into a good college what should be my main focus in studies for this field? What can help my chances of getting into a med school? What are the average steps taken to become a Radiologist? (So that I an idea of what my life is going to be like) I get giddy every time I see an X-ray or a MRI machine! Thank you in advance

• Answer:

  I'm going to add onto what the other folks have said... which are all awesome comments... - Doesn't matter where you go to school and it doesn't matter what you major in... All you have to do is meet the reqs for the med school you're applying to. You DO NOT need a degree in science. Major in whatever you will enjoy and you will probably get a better GPA. I majored in Human Nutrition with a minor in Religious Studies. If I had to do it over, I'd do a foreign language like Spanish. - Get a good GPA - Do well on the MCAT - Be involved in something you are passionate about. It could be a music club or the "pre med" club or AMSA or whatever. It doesn't have to be science related. - Clinical experience is becoming more and more important. Volunteering is weak - so see if you can get a job in dietary or scribing or whatever. But if you can't get a job, then I suppose you should volunteer or shadow a physician. - If you can get involved in some kind of research experience, that is helpful. So now you're in med school. What now? You have to dominate. Its a different game and now you've gone from being one of the smartest in your classes to simply average. Everyone is brilliant. Radiology is one of the most competitive specialties there are. Therefore, you need to do very well in medical school. You need to have a great USMLE Step 1 score and you need to pretty much honor the main clinical clerkships. Research would help greatly. When you get to a radiology residency, you're doing diagnostic radiology. To do interventional, its a one year fellowship. You can go on to do other stuff too... like neurointerventional or pediatric, etc. That being said, some of the radiology groups I've seen staff all interventionalists and there's one on call for that particular day. So even if you're doing interventional rads, you are probably spending the majority of your time doing diagnostic stuff. Also, other specialties such as cardiology and vascular are stealing your procedures. By the time you're done in about 13-15 years, chances are things are not going to be the same. I can promise you that you will change your mind (multiple times) as to what you want to do once you get into medical school. Radiology sounds cool now, but just wait until you're actually thrown into it all. You may really like medicine... or really hate sitting in a dark room all day with no patient contact looking at yet another chest x ray. Again, go to whatever college you want. You do NOT need to go to a Harvard to get into medical school. So many people believe that ivy league is superior... Who cares. There are many folks from Ivy League schools in my class (Harvard, Brown, etc) and I went to my state school (Arizona State). They paid more for their undergrad education than I did. So there you go. Good luck. Bookmark this post... Chances are you won't go into radiology (you'll change your mind), but you sound like you're smart enough to get into med school.