Resident's Corner - Welcome

Welcome to the HMS Core Clerkship in Radiology at Brigham and Women's Hospital. As a recent resident at the Brigham who 1) believes that this department is a wonderful place to learn radiology and 2) was fortunate to have had very good experiences during my medical student radiology rotations, I have an interest in general medical education and more specifically in making your core radiology experience as educational and as enjoyable as possible.

This manual aims to complement your rotation textbooks and is designed to be a “quick read” to “get you up to speed” in the first few days of the rotation so that you will be primed to get the most out of your time with us afterward. My goal is to provide a resident perspective on radiology primarily at the Brigham specifically, but I will also touch on radiology as a whole. With this in mind, much of the content of this manual was developed based upon the following two principles:

1. Medical students have two distinct, often competing goals: 1) to maximize learning and comprehension in a limited time and 2) to achieve strong grades/evaluations. With this in mind, I hope we can work together to achieve both goals simultaneously. If we do our jobs well, you should develop a deeper understanding of human pathophysiology and clinical decision making through the lens of medical imaging. This will translate to better performance in this clerkship and nearly every other core rotation!
2. Many of what I consider the barriers to learning medicine result from educators assuming a basic background understanding that is either not present or not adequate (think about first year basic science lectures on lipid metabolism, for example). Therefore, I will do my best to explain the basics rather than assume you know them (you can always skip ahead).

Like most educational materials, this manual is a continual work in progress, such that constructive criticism is both highly-valued and encouraged. Particularly, I would be interested to know about anything not currently covered that you believe should be or anything that you believe could be explained more clearly.

Taking a step back, it is my belief that diagnostic imaging is integral to nearly every aspect of modern medical practice and that radiology will continue to pioneer increasingly sophisticated minimally invasive therapies. I think it is an exciting time to learn medicine in general and radiology in particular, and I hope to share with you some of my excitement for the field.

While you may not choose radiology as a career, you will use medical imaging on a daily basis to care for your patients. Being a savvy clinician means knowing how to use radiology efficiently and effectively to diagnose and manage disease. If you allow yourself to become truly engaged with the material, I believe you will find some of the basics of radiology surprisingly attainable, such that by the end of the month you will be sufficiently equipped to provide meaningful interpretations of some common radiologic studies. In addition to sharpening your clinical judgement, the interpretative skills you develop on this rotation may prove more immediately valuable by giving you additional tools to use to shine in the eyes of your supervising residents and attendings on future rotations (principle #1).

Sincerely,
Travis Caton MD (BWH Radiology Class of 2019)
Paul Bunch MD (BWH Radiology Class of 2016)
  mcaton@partners.org