Learning Radiology: Recognizing the Basics (Herring) – In my opinion, this is simply the best book available for medical students wanting to learn radiology. If you’re only willing or able to read one book on this rotation, this should be it.
Should Read
Squire’s Fundamentals of Radiology (Novelline) – Until Learning Radiology, Squire’s was one of the better options available for medical students. It is still a fine book and you should take a look at it, but I would definitely recommend getting through Learning Radiology first.
Great Resources, but read only if you have a particular interest
Fundamentals of Diagnostic Radiology (Brant and Helms) – This is the text read by most first year radiology residents as their introduction to the specialty. It is a large text and has way more information than you are expected to know, but it is relatively accessible, as it is written for someone with little prior experience with radiology. If you are particularly interested in a certain area of radiology, the corresponding chapter in this book may be worth reading. I have found the chapters on musculoskeletal radiology and neuroradiology particularly helpful.
Pediatric Imaging: The Fundamentals (Donnelly) – This provides a wonderful introduction to pediatric radiology for those who may be interested in pediatrics and want to know more. It is written primarily for a junior resident level audience, but I have found it to be very accessible.
Fundamentals of Body CT (Webb) – While the Brant and Helms chapters offer an excellent introduction to abdominal radiography and fluoroscopy, they don’t focus as much on computed tomography. If you’d like to know more about cross-sectional imaging, this is a great introduction.
Teaching Atlas of Vascular and Non-vascular Interventional Radiology (Funaki) – Interventional radiology is a field that many medical students find interesting but often feel their exposure is limited. For students hoping to learn more about IR, this is an excellent, image-rich atlas that details nicely the wide variety of procedures performed in this subspecialty. While this book is not among the Countway holdings, numerous similar texts are, as detailed in the IR discussion in Section 5.