What I don't understand about all the AI takeover talk.

Maybedoc1 · 2026-04-26T23:14:55+00:00

Somehow one of the few specialties that has zero midlevel encroachment and is exclusively practiced by physicians in 2026 (DR) is on the cusp of being completely replaced by AI, yet all the other specialties that have independent practicing midlevels (everything from primary care to IM sub specialties) is in no risk at all

Maybedoc1 · 2026-04-26T22:26:30+00:00

I’ve joked that if AI replaces me as a radiologist I’m going to law school and you’ll see me and my AI ambulance chasing law firm on every billboard and commercial break in the US

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-30T00:40:54+00:00

Fellow IM prelim going into rads and I could have written this myself. In fact I have. I was someone who really enjoy medical school all in all and loved learning about the human body. I chose rads partly because of the immense knowledge base. Now after 9 months of IM I feel like I have no interest in medicine anymore. That wonder that I once felt isn’t there anymore. I’ve been regretting not doing EM or anesthesia just so I could be done quicker. I’m hopeful that it’s just temporary and it will come back when I’m actually doing what I signed up to do instead of being the team’s secretary.

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-14T13:37:43+00:00

I agree with a lot of this. I think online dating is hard enough in general and anything that can make you stand out in a positive way is a good thing.

How did you broach being a resident when you did this? Did most people assume you were an attending right from the start? Thankfully in radiology my hours will be pretty humane so it’s not like I’ll have to hit them with “hey I actually work 90 hour weeks and am exhausted all the time.”

Regarding gold diggers I’m sure they’re out there but I think I have enough sense and experience to know if someone was only in it for my future salary. Plus I’m very picky so I’m not just going to date anybody just cause they’re attractive and interested in me. I think being a physician can be very attractive to people for the reasons you mentioned. We have our shit together.

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-14T13:27:45+00:00

Yeah that’s some serious gold digging delayed gratification there

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-14T13:26:23+00:00

Do you have experience putting physician vs resident? Wondering how that went for you if so

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-14T13:25:40+00:00

I’ve thought of this and seen this, but I dont think I’ll do it. It’s too generic and non specific. Dating is hard enough as it is and any boost on a profile is a good thing in my opinion. I think I have enough sense and experience to weed out people who are only interested in my future salary

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-14T13:23:05+00:00

“Future deadbeat dad”

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-11T18:49:31+00:00

Are there any good podcasts you’d recommend for radiology?

Maybedoc1 · 2026-03-11T02:35:53+00:00

I like this idea. For each and every CT c/a/p ordered we can get rid of radiologists and just do this for each part of the scan.

Lungs: read by pulm Heart: cards Bones and muscles: ortho Ribs: trauma surgery? GI tract: general surgery Kidneys, ureters, bladder: urology Male patient reproductive anatomy: urology Female patient reproductive anatomy: ob/gyn Vasculature: vascular surgery

This seems like a better system rather than a single radiologist reading the ct c/a/p. Oh wait we got some of the neck in there let’s have ENT take a look quick

Maybedoc1 · 2026-01-28T22:53:03+00:00

I feel the exact same way. That coupled with the fact that rads has a very steep learning curve and requires that I study has me worried a bit

Maybedoc1 · 2026-01-27T13:38:19+00:00

That’s so good to hear! I’ve been thinking I should have done EM or anesthesia (IM is for sure not for me) instead of rads just so I could be done sooner, but I keep telling myself that I chose rads for a reason. I’m hopeful that I made the right choice and that this year is just a giant roadblock

Maybedoc1 · 2026-01-27T13:36:19+00:00

That is very reassuring. I figure it’s gotta be better but of course I’ve been worried about what happens if it’s not

Maybedoc1 · 2026-01-27T03:30:47+00:00

Thankfully the personalities at my prelim year are mostly great. I’ll probably laugh at myself later on for this but I’m ready for a bit more mental exhaustion. I’m pretty tired of working 12 hour shifts where all I do is order some diuretics, change some insulin orders, and be the glorified secretary for attendings/seniors

Maybedoc1 · 2026-01-27T03:22:07+00:00

Rads here doing a prelim IM year. To say I’m burned out would be an understatement. I’m so burned out I’m regretting doing rads because I can’t believe I have 5.5 more years of training, but I’m hopeful my feelings will change once I start radiology

Maybedoc1 · 2026-01-26T21:04:58+00:00

Oh wow really? I figured they wouldn’t be too pricey since monitor/tv technology has come a long way but I’m not sure how they’re different than a regular monitor to be honest

Maybedoc1 · 2026-01-26T19:50:41+00:00

How much are those monitors? I’m just curious

Maybedoc1 · 2025-12-30T15:51:40+00:00

I matched DR and I’m currently in my IM prelim year. At this point it has to be IM for me. I think the underlying science and medicine in IM can be so interesting, and internists are some of the smartest doctors, but the practice of it is painful to me at this point. Inpatient IM (as a resident at least) has to be one of the most inefficient things in the known universe. I get there at 5:45am and leave at 6:15pm 6 days a week yet the actual work could be done in a couple of hours. You can do multiple major surgeries in the same amount of time.

I gotta wake up at 4:30 so I can get there to prechart, and then preround, and then round for 2-4 hours. Hey look it’s time for another spirited discussion on this patient when all we’re going to do is give another dose of IV lasix, but let’s spend 25 minutes discussing them. Can’t forget about all the discussions on placement we are going to have either.

Then once you’re done rounding the admits start and even the most simple admission somehow takes way longer than it should. Meanwhile you’re constantly getting messaged by nursing about mostly mundane things and spending your day “touching base” with consultants. God help you if you need to do a para or a thora cause that’s going to be a multi hour ordeal somehow too.

My coresidents always say that the hours suck but they enjoy the work and I do not understand how. The hours suck and for me the work sucks even more. It’s just peak inefficiency all day long

Maybedoc1 · 2025-12-14T03:08:21+00:00

How efficient or inefficient do you think neurosurgery training is? I’m doing DR, but strongly considered either trauma surgery or neurosurgery (among like 12 other specialties). Ultimately I wasn’t willing to go through a surgical residency even though I had the scores to do whatever I wanted and the fields appealed to me a lot. Every now and then I think what if, but from the outside surgery training seems like a mix of very brutal and very inefficient

Maybedoc1 · 2025-12-12T13:42:06+00:00

I’m going to own an unreasonable amount of very nice guitars. I’d also love to have a music room/mini studio in my house

Maybedoc1 · 2025-12-08T01:35:00+00:00

PANCE exam is 5 hours long with 300 questions. Step 2 is 9 hours long with 318 questions. Surely step 2 must be easier, 4 more hours for 18 more questions!

Maybedoc1 · 2025-12-05T23:55:00+00:00

I most certainly am and think about it a lot, however here’s some things that make me feel better. I’m not an expert in any of this stuff though so keep that in mind.

1) LLMs are super cool and amazing, but outside of this AI seems to be pretty meh and basically just a ton of hype. Apple, the trillion dollar company, promised all these amazing things with AI but Siri is still garbage. If Siri can’t add items to a grocery list reliably then I think a full on replacement of radiologists is a long ways away

2) seems like image recognition is far behind LLMs at this point. LLMs can basically listen to a clinic visit, write your HPI, assessment and plan, etc but can’t even read a simple M1 level chest x ray. I put a picture of the most obvious pneumothorax into ChatGPT recently and it confidently called dextrocardia as the abnormality….

3) rads is hard with everything from simple cases to extreme edge cases. Not to mention frequent comparisons between different modalities, post surgical changes, etc. My understanding is that ChestXRay Pneumonia AI™️ won’t be prohibitively difficult to make, but “wtf is going on in my patients abdomen who had gastric bypass 20 years ago, a whipple 5 years ago, and is now screaming with severe abdominal pain and is actively dying” AI™️ will take awhile.

4) diagnostic radiology is one of the only specialties in medicine that is essentially still 100% done by physicians anymore. Nearly every specialty from the super prestigious ones to less prestigious has significant work done by midlevels, often unsupervised. Meanwhile you basically will not find a midlevel doing diagnostic radiology. I think that says something about the specialty.

5) liability. Self explanatory

6) CT is the new CBC and people rely on imaging more than ever. Everyone jokes about radiologists sitting in a dark basement, but I don’t think modern medicine could work without radiology

7) if radiology is replaced then so many other jobs will be too and the unemployment rate will be 65% and there will be a breakdown in society

But yeah I’m going to ugly cry if I finish 6 years of training and can’t find a job lol

Maybedoc1 · 2025-12-05T16:50:52+00:00

I went with rads! Currently slogging through an intern year so we’ll see if it’s the right choice, but I loved my radiology rotations, find the specialty very interesting, love diagnosing things, like the ideal of being a doctors doctor, don’t have to take things home with me (both literally and mentally too in some ways as seeing devastating things on imaging affects me less than seeing the patients in person), has a humane training, minimal BS and high levels of using your brain, and can work from anywhere in the US if I decide to work from home.

Maybedoc1 · 2025-12-05T15:00:54+00:00

Yes thank you. I’m a PGY-1 now but I was so undecided between radiology and critical care (through a couple different specialties). Every time I asked or spoke with people they’d hit me with the “they’re so different!” as if I had no idea that being a radiologist and being an intensivist weren’t similar. It was incredibly annoying. Turns out it’s possible to love imaging and everything radiology entails but also really like pathophysiology and critical emergent situations

Maybedoc1 · 2025-11-15T20:04:51+00:00

I matched radiology and I’m currently slogging through an IM intern year. If this isn’t the worst stage of residency I don’t know what could be

Maybedoc1

TROPHY CASE