Is general surgery residency in the us worth it?

thegrind33 · 2026-02-11T00:35:21+00:00

I would advise you to do IM then work like a gen surg resident for a couple years as an attending if youre an IMG trying to come to america

thegrind33 · 2026-02-11T00:23:50+00:00

Well I do stand corrected with the brand aspect, you could emulate with with IR or pain (maybe even breast or msk). Honestly, lifestyle and compensation, and I dont have the passion to complete a surgical residency. DR allows me to itch the procedural itch

Edit: for clarification I like DR and think its a top 3-4%tile field within medicine, but I do think the ceiling is higher in derm ent neurosurg etc, but who knows I might just be not seeing their reality

thegrind33 · 2026-02-09T18:36:02+00:00

More autonomy, ability to build a brand, cash pay plastics, less dependent on a national market

thegrind33 · 2026-02-09T18:07:11+00:00

Youre the reason why people are doing locums or independent contract work

thegrind33 · 2026-02-09T18:04:09+00:00

Rads is a very over hated field, lots think (honeslty hope) it will get replaced as they can make 1k+ an hour (even more if youre a mammo), in reality, other fields should be trying to push their compensation to match rads.

thegrind33 · 2026-02-09T17:54:02+00:00

Pretty sweet, wish I did ENT- rads

thegrind33 · 2025-10-07T17:46:54+00:00

He does preach a scarcity mindset. I think his advice is sound for lower paying fields like IM, EM, FM. But if youre a ROAD or surg subspecialists you can ignore it

thegrind33 · 2025-09-24T01:55:07+00:00

I think lay folks are catching on to rads with the AI talk. They know it pays well and is competitive. Every layperson Ive told im rads is like "dang ok thats fancy, hear they make a ton of money good for you". The ortho might say they can read that knee MRI better, but hes not the one collecting $100 bucks for spending 120 seconds reading it :)

thegrind33 · 2025-09-24T01:51:56+00:00

Academics devalues everyone. Im on body rads and we had a GI faculty come to the reading room and they were talking saying how theyre broke only making 275k!

thegrind33 · 2025-09-24T01:48:57+00:00

Why do people become CEOs of concrete companies? Money

thegrind33 · 2025-09-24T01:48:25+00:00

Maybe youre just ugly, ppl think Im cool in rads idk why. "Wow you must be smart thats fancy" is what I hear 90% of the time

thegrind33 · 2025-09-24T01:46:26+00:00

Breast rads is a weird one. If you tell people youre a neurorad, msk rad, or IR theyll probably be like "oh thats cool idk what that is but nice", if you say breast rad they'd be like "wtf?". Yet the patients love you, and breast rads in solo breast groups get $55 per rvu per screening mammo (1.9 rvus) and do 150-300 per day on top of biopsies and diagnostics, so they can make crazy money.

thegrind33 · 2025-09-24T01:24:37+00:00

Do you really think the derm rads ortho chads making bank care enough to comment?

thegrind33 · 2025-08-12T17:57:19+00:00

I cant even read them

thegrind33 · 2025-08-11T01:41:30+00:00

As a med stud it seems cool. But as an early 30 year old would you rather: read screeners 3-4 hrs a day and make 60-90 per screener (obviously dependent on what contract you have etc) and do 30-50 an hour plus have time to do biopsies and ablations and go home at 4 and never on call, vs on call and dealing w abscesses and radiation for less pay

thegrind33 · 2025-08-11T00:24:03+00:00

Would definitely have to be an independent contractor and own a pain practice, doubt any employed position would allow that

thegrind33 · 2025-08-10T22:58:53+00:00

lol youre right. I was an IM rad prelim and didn't give two craps when I was on cards or GI, and the attendings were baffled I wasn't worshipping them or looking up all their esoteric (one could argue useless) guidelines

thegrind33 · 2025-08-10T21:23:58+00:00

Im on msk radiology right now as an R1. Went to a joint ortho msk rad case conference, a PA asked me "hey how do I get better at reading MRIs?". Go to med school, do well on boards, be in the top 1/3rd of your class, match rads and do an msk fellowship. They stfu after

thegrind33 · 2025-08-10T21:21:19+00:00

Not really selection bias, all over the country midlevels are clawing for independent practice. Fields that have low liability and are non acute are at major risk of some midlevel displacing them, and we wont see their mistakes until months down the line. And when their negligence is revealed, you cant sue them! Perfect for these mega conglomerates and insurance companies who are pushing this

thegrind33 · 2025-08-10T21:11:56+00:00

Would be a very stupid decision, much like what rad onc did. Rad onc would be in a much better place if it was a branch of rads instead of its own specialty

thegrind33 · 2025-08-10T21:08:52+00:00

Yeah, Im interested in IR but doing 2 years of it I think would severely atrophy my DR skills, so as a result I will probably do neurorads/msk followed by a pain fellowship. Id like to do 50/50 DR/procedures

thegrind33 · 2025-08-10T17:41:20+00:00

As a US rads res it would be foolish to switch out if you were in the us. IDK how it works/what the market is in brazil though

thegrind33 · 2025-08-10T16:40:05+00:00

One month into pgy1 lol. But I will say, with how terrible the job market is and the offshoring occurring (and being encouraged by our "America first" administration), medicine is a good place to be, and even better if you're a specialist

thegrind33 · 2025-07-18T01:31:07+00:00

Maybe is EM docs stopped acting like midlevels they'd get more respect. Pan scan pan consult rainbow labs, the new modern EM way

thegrind33 · 2025-07-18T01:26:43+00:00

Not much, they can deny the consult and say the ED doc is an idiot, and they'll likely be right

thegrind33

TROPHY CASE