Recovering From a Major Injury as a Proceduralist

Dr. Sudheendra has recently returned to his clinical IR practice. He had taken one year off to recover from a traumatic fall that resulted in multiple fractures and loss of function in his left hand and arm. The recovery process was physically arduous, requiring intensive physical and occupational therapy multiple times a week to re-learn basic functions. As an IR that was 100% procedural, Dr. Sudheendra faced a lot of uncertainty about whether he would ever be able to return to performing complex procedures. Additionally, he faced the stress of battling with insurance companies for his rightful disability insurance payments. The paperwork process required him to submit case logs and attestations from co-workers to prove his prior case volume.

Through this experience, Dr. Sudheendra is able to give disability insurance advice for young physicians and graduating trainees. Buying an insurance plan before residency or fellowship ends will allow the trainee to pay a lower premium than if they were attendings. It is important to read the fine print in the contracts that are offered and consider buying both short-term and long-term insurance, since there is no way to predict the timing and severity of a future injury. Additionally, buying into multiple plans can lower the total annual premium, but it comes with the added stress of having to deal with multiple companies when an injury does occur.

As Dr. Sudheendra returned to clinical practice, he started with locums in community hospitals. He found that easing back into simple IR procedures allowed him to not only gain his confidence back, but also invest more time into his family. His next endeavor is opening his own office-based lab (OBL) focused on vascular interventions.

To end the episode, we discuss Dr. Sundheendra’s perspective on navigating his career. He originally started in a cardiothoracic surgery residency, but decided to leave the field to pursue interventional radiology. This switch was not simple, and it required years of researching and advocating for himself to different residency programs. On this journey, he was able to attain his diagnostic radiology residency and interventional radiology fellowship positions through persistence and networking. Overall, Dr. Sudheendra advises procedurally-oriented medical students and early trainees to expose themselves to all related subspecialty areas, think about new developments in those fields, and imagine how the field might change in the course of their careers.