Hi everyone,

Before I get into my whole situation, I'd like to give a brief intro - I don't know if any of the info will help, but.... Whatever! I've already decided to put it down!

I'm a Grade 12 student at Westmount Secondary, and a very confused one as well. My marks average to around 95%, but I honestly have no idea where I'm going after high school.

I was considering Nuclear Med, but I need a little bit of info.... I heard that Nuclear Medicine is a pretty big field -- or was it part of a really big field? What's exactly involved with it, and if it does branch off, what are the possibilities?

Also, (this might sound pretty stupid) but where do I start? Honestly, like what do I do -- which program should apply to (I looked under Radiology in Health Sci????), if I was going to specialize what do I do after first year (or whenever the time's right)?

Finally, just for a bit of background.... Is Nuclear Med a Bio, Physics, and/or Chem type science? I'm not sure if it'll be the best choice for me, but it is definitely one of my considerations. I'm particularly better at Physics, and then Bio and Chem. Oh and I'm taking AP Physics and Bio. Which I'm also not sure if Mac provides credits for.

Sorry for such a messy post, I'm just going to summarize the questions down here:

1. What exactly is Nuclear Medicine? Is it part of a larger field, and/or does it separate into other smaller fields that we can specialize in?

2. How do I get into it? Which first year program to apply to? If specialization can be done, what do I do?

3. Is Nuclear Med a Bio, Physics, and/or Chem related field of science?



Thank you so much for reading this unorganized thread

-- Hillary

Nuclear Medicine/Radiology is a field of medicine, you would have to go to med school to pursue this. So you would need to do a four year undergrad degree and apply to med school, following this you could pursue a radiology residency.

On the other hand, McMaster has a Medical Radiation Sciences program offered in conjunction with Mohawk College. There are three specializations (Radiation therapy, ultrasound technology and radiography).

http://future.mcmaster.ca/programs/mrsc/ here is info about the program.

If you don't know what nuclear medicine is, how can you be interested in it?
There are many different ways you could become involved in nuclear medicine, depending on what your end goals are. It would probably be a good idea to google nuclear medicine and read more about it that way. And to answer your last question, it is a combination of the three - maybe a bit more bio and chem than physics, but still a combination.

Hey starfish,

The reason why I'm interested in Nuclear Med, without having much of a background, is because based off the bits of background I've gathered from teachers, I've assumed up until now that it was a Physics/Health type science, and as mentioned, I prefer Physics and Bio over Chem (and quite greatly too, Chem doesn't get across very easily to me). Hence why I am asking for clarification on the sciences involved with Nuclear Med, to see if this is really the thing for me.

I have done a bit of research into it, I know it involves quite a broad range of studies from various types of Medical Imaging to Radiopharmacy (which I'm leaning more towards). I was just wondering if Nuclear Med has anything more to it, and if it was a branch off of a larger field of science so that maybe I can start off there and work my way into a specialty.

So jamescw1234, what you mean by getting into med school first and then applying to radiology... as in this radiology >> http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/main/schools_and_departmen ts.html (under departments)?

Thanks,

H

Originally Posted by hashwa

Hey starfish,

The reason why I'm interested in Nuclear Med, without having much of a background, is because based off the bits of background I've gathered from teachers, I've assumed up until now that it was a Physics/Health type science, and as mentioned, I prefer Physics and Bio over Chem (and quite greatly too, Chem doesn't get across very easily to me). Hence why I am asking for clarification on the sciences involved with Nuclear Med, to see if this is really the thing for me.

I have done a bit of research into it, I know it involves quite a broad range of studies from various types of Medical Imaging to Radiopharmacy (which I'm leaning more towards). I was just wondering if Nuclear Med has anything more to it, and if it was a branch off of a larger field of science so that maybe I can start off there and work my way into a specialty.

So jamescw1234, what you mean by getting into med school first and then applying to radiology... as in this radiology >> http://fhs.mcmaster.ca/main/schools_...rtmen ts.html (under departments)?

Thanks,

H

I don't understand how "bits of background" can make you interested if you don't know what it is. What are these "bits"? Nuclear medicine is very broad, and the specific area you want to practice in determines what education path you should take, as well as the relative amounts of bio, chem and physics involved.
If you want to do radiopharmacy, even that isn't very specific - do you want to do radiopharmaceutical sciences (i.e. making the drugs) or be a radiopharmacist? Do you want to do industry or hospital? If you want to do radiopharmaceutical sciences, then you would do an undergrad in science and then do a PhD working in a lab that specializes in that area (for example, the Valliant lab) and then go from there. If you want to be an actual radiopharmacist, then you have to become a pharmacist first, and then sort of get into radiomedicine informally, since there aren't actually specific training programs to become a radiopharmacist in Canada - and because there aren't specific training programs, most of these positions are more appropriate for someone with a research/chemistry background (for example, there are some job postings for "radiopharmacist/radiochemist", and they're not really pharmacist jobs at all).

Either way, radiopharmacy is pretty chemistry-heavy, so if you're saying you want to stay away from something that has a lot of chemistry, but you're interested in radiopharmacy, it really makes me wonder how much you've looked into this.

If you want to do nuclear medicine, you might want to focus on getting into med school first (3-4 years), then get into medical school (3-4 years). Then you'd have to try to get into radiology for your residency (5 years), then you'd have to get into a fellowship for nuclear medicine. A whole lot can change in that 10+ years.