a slow-afternoon rant

[fox]

Here is a commercial I've been hearing quite a lot on the radio lately. There are three or four different speakers, trading lines, and it goes something like this:

Becoming a radiologist isn't easy.
After college, and an undergraduate degree*,
there are four years of medical school --
-- followed by a one-year internship in diagnostic radiology --
-- followed by a four-year residency --
-- and then a two-year fellowship.
Thirteen years later, you become a radiologist.

They go on to talk about how that means they're the best at interpreting X-rays and CAT scans and so on, and how whatever hospital they're shilling for has the best radiologists known to man, and you definitely want them consulting with your doctor blah blah blah.

I have no position on whether I want those radiologists consulting with my doctor or whether I want my own doctor to be able to read an MRI or what, but I do have the following complaints:

1. How, please, does the med school-internship-residency-fellowship gamut make radiology different from other medical specialties? and
   
2. Four years of medical school plus a one-year internship plus a four-year residency plus a two-year fellowship adds up to eleven years. All that plus four years of college adds up to fifteen years. So forgive me for asking, but when you say "thirteen years later", you mean ... later than what, exactly?

Skilled diagnostician or no, I want every medical professional responsible for my care to be able to add at a kindergarten level. Call me a spoiled American if you like, but I'm picky that way.


*note that this is pronounced with a stress on the and, as though "college" and "an undergraduate degree" were two separate events or milestones on the theoretical road to becoming a radiologist. But that's just bad voice acting; it is secondary to my main arguments with this commercial.

Comments

[kmg-365.livejournal.com]

Perhaps 13 years isn't the result. They put in those 15 years. Then, 13 years later, you become a radiologist. :-)

How, please, does the med school-internship-residency-fellowship gamut make radiology different from other medical specialties?

Maybe they have doctor-envy. Sort of like that Seinfeld episode where Jerry said that a podiatrist isn't a real doctor, and that a dermatologist just treats acne. Maybe they're saying "hey, we're not just a bunch of shlubs off the street!! We have to go through just as much training."

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

I worry that you're right about the second thing. "Look, we went to medical school, you know. It's not like we're ... dentists, over here." But in that case they should maybe not set themselves up in opposition to doctors, like when they say "who else would you want consulting with your doctor about the results of your PET scan?", with the emphasis on "doctor" -- again with the bad voice acting, because if they'd said "who else would you want consulting with your doctor" (or "with your primary doctor"), that particular problem would go away, wouldn't it?

[fafou.livejournal.com]

Yeah radiologists are doctors just like gynecologists and GPs and other stuff. I've been hearing that PSA running on NPR recently also and I've been pissed off about the same thing. But then I remember when I worked for the OB/Gyns and they complained about the same thing.

Ultimately it made me remember that MD's are whiners.

[mearagrrl.livejournal.com]

That is very weird. I mean, I can see the point of having a PSA if they're, like, worried people are getting them confused with the, like, radiology techs that you see ads on late night TV "go to school and become a tech!" but...you'd think someone would write a better ad.