Academic Curriculum

Resident and faculty participation in conferences

A diagnostic radiology conference is held daily at noon.  To ensure comprehensive representation of the scope of diagnostic radiology, there are rotating faculty responsibilities for conference content which are shared among each subspecialty divisions of the Department of Radiology.

The IR morbidity and mortality conference are held monthly.  Cases are prepared and presented by residents and faculty in consultation with appointed faculty mentors, who also serve as discussants.

Multidisciplinary interdepartmental conferences are also held on a regular basis with various medical and surgical specialties as detailed in the schedule above.  Residents prepare and present relevant cases in consultation with appointed faculty members who are also in attendance.

A daily interventional radiology working conference is held from 7:15-8:15 AM in the interventional radiology conference and consultation area. This is attended by all faculty physicians, physician assistants, and all trainees on rotation in interventional radiology. All scheduled inpatient and outpatient procedures are presented by individual residents for discussion and review during the conference. Each presentation includes a case synopsis, salient laboratory and clinical data, review of pertinent imaging and discussion of appropriate procedural technique. After review of the scheduled procedures, each of the interventional radiology inpatients is presented by the resident responsible for the procedure. The pertinent clinical, imaging and laboratory data are reviewed, and patient dispositions are determined.

Several interdepartmental multidisciplinary conferences are held on a weekly basis and others are held at monthly or quarterly intervals. Residents are assigned discussant or presentation roles in these conferences supported by radiology faculty supervision. For example, in the case of the weekly hepatobiliary pancreatic conference, patients are presented to a multidisciplinary group of Interventional Radiologists, Medical, Radiation and Surgical Oncologists, who discuss appropriate management options. The radiology resident has the responsibility of presenting and reviewing all pertinent imaging findings to the group attending this conference.

Representative Schedule of Interdepartmental conferences

Day        Conference                     Frequency

Mon      Vascular Conference    Every Monday at 4 PM

PERT Conference           4th Monday at 4 PM

Tues      GU Tumor board              Every other Tuesday at 4 PM

Wed      HBP Multidisciplinary Conf           Every Wednesday 7:30-8:30 AM

Thurs     Trauma (TACS) – Radiology conference Every other Thursday 10AM-11 AM

Friday    Thoracic Oncology Conference  Every Friday at 11AM

Colorectal Oncology Conference Every other Friday at 8 AM

Journal Club

A monthly journal club is held on Friday mornings led by residents where 1 or 2 recently published articles from the medical literature are critically reviewed.  Residents are tasked with evaluating the methodology of the study under discussion as well as the research design.  Discussion is facilitated by a faculty mentor with participation from the entire IR section.

Clinical Curriculum

The first 3 years of the clinical curriculum are focused on diagnostic radiology (DR) and are identical to the curriculum for those residents in the diagnostic radiology program.  The last 2 years are focused on interventional radiology including interventional radiology related and ICU rotations.

The IR clinical curriculum consists of rotations on interventional radiology at BMC and several interventional radiology related rotations.  By the conclusion of the residency, IR/DR residents will complete a total of 18 months on interventional radiology, 5 months interventional radiology related rotations and 1 month of ICU.  Please refer to the block diagram for more details on the rotations.

Interventional Radiology related rotations:

Intensive Care Unit (ICU) one 4-week rotation during PGY-5 (outside of Radiology)

Vascular Surgery two 4-week rotations during PGY5 and PGY6 (outside of Radiology)

Neurointerventional Radiology two 4-week rotations during PGY5 and PGY6(within radiology)

Musculoskeletal Radiology Procedures one 4-week rotation during PGY5 or 6 (within radiology)

Boston Children’s Hospital Pediatric Radiology one 11-week rotation during PGY-4 (within radiology)