His Hike Through Training is Helped by Professional Connections

A second-year diagnostic radiology resident who volunteers for two societies and the ABR, Michael Justus, MD, knows the value of making connections. But he recently found himself in a situation where he wasn’t interested in adding a contact. 

Dr. Justus and his husband were hiking in the mountains of North Carolina when they ran across a bear. Nearing the end of their nine-mile trek, the last thing they wanted to do was retrace their steps. 

“If we turned around, we would be adding three or four more miles to an already long hike, so we decided to try to scare the bear off,” he said. “We yelled at the bear, and it worked. It walked off. We were at the point of being too tired to think rationally.” 

Bear encounter survived, Dr. Justus is ready to take on new trails. Nominated by the ACR Resident and Fellow Section, he recently joined the ABR’s Diagnostic Radiology Initial Certification Advisory Committee. As a member, he will serve as a liaison between candidates and the ABR, giving feedback and providing updates to both sides. 

He’s looking forward to the work, which will begin at the RSNA Annual Meeting in Chicago in late November. 

“I’m excited about it,” Dr. Justus said. “This is a unique time in certification with the reintroduction of the oral exam. That brings a lot of anxiety. This is a crucial moment for ABR communications, and I’m excited to step in as a trainee and try to be an intermediary.” 

Dr. Justus has made volunteerism a priority since starting his residency at Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center. He’s been an ACR Resident and Fellow Section Member, a North Carolina ACR Resident Scholar, a member of the RSNA’s Medical Student Task Force, and a medical student team member for TheRadRoom. 

“It comes back to why I went into medicine in the first place,” Dr. Justus said. “You can find meaning in the day-to-day work of radiology, but I have always been someone who finds meaning in relationships with people. And I ended up in radiology, which isn’t the most connected medical specialty in terms of interpersonal interaction. I find that I can make connections with people within the field through service, volunteerism, and getting involved with these committees. It keeps me connected to the bigger picture.” 

As the diagnostic radiology program director and professor of radiology at Wake Forest, Carol P. Geer, MD, has seen benefits of Dr. Justus’ contributions. 

“Dr. Justus has been pivotal in the creation of a national medical student program at RSNA, a social media educational case series, and the creation of radiology curriculum in medical school,” Dr. Geer said. “In residency, he has continued to be devoted to improving the educational curriculum and is starting a conference series in our residency program focusing on ‘great calls’ made by residents interpreting studies on call with the educational goal of making sure everyone in the residency benefits from the educational opportunity of these difficult cases while applauding outstanding work by his colleagues.” 

Social media has been part of his plan to build connections; Dr. Justus has more than 32,500 followers on X. He says he has slowed the pace of his posts, but when he puts up content, it’s often things that he finds educational or amusing. He realizes that posting can be a quick way to either build or break connections.  

“When you’re posting things that could be humorous or poke fun at certain topics, it’s a fine line,” he said. “You don’t want to upset people too much, but getting close to that line is really important in humor sometimes.” 

He took six years between earning his undergraduate degree at North Carolina State University and starting at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University. In that time, Dr. Justus filled a variety of roles, from working for a church in Malaysia to teaching English to engineers in South Korea to serving in AmeriCorps in environmental conservation. 

All along, he was getting real-world exposure that would lead him to radiology. 

“It wasn’t an optimal CV-building approach, but from a personal standpoint, it feels like those experiences compounded over my life and have led to my long-term success,” Dr. Justus said. “I feel like I have more breadth, can swim in a lot of waters and am open-minded to more experiences as a result.”