There are two, hour-long diagnostic radiologic teaching conferences each day, one at 8 a.m. and another at noon.

It has always been the philosophy of the Department that residents’ conferences reign supreme and take precedence over any service obligations so that, except for the two months in the senior years the resident spends at one of the Department's free-standing imaging centers, all of the residents are expected to and do attend each and every conference, regardless of their subspecialty assignment.

Every conference is monitored by at least one faculty member who is assigned to be the leader of that conference. Additional faculty attend conferences as staffing permits.

Morning Conferences

These include a didactic lecture course in radiologic physics offered one morning a week. This physics course is completed and repeated each year. Residents attend the course each year before completing the Physics portion of the American Board of Radiology’s certifying examination.

The Radiologic Physics Course includes lectures, problems and review sessions including the Raphex examinations.

Residents receive in-house, formal instruction in radiologic physics from several different sources. The bulk of their training is from radiologic physicist Michael Nunno, MS. who offers approximately 60 hours of physics lecture each year covering all aspects of radiologic physics. Mr. Nunno also conducts a review course for our residents who are preparing for the physics portion of the American Board of Radiology Examination.

In addition, the residents receive training in MRI physics from the diagnostic faculty and by attending a week-long MRI physics course off-campus.

Every other Friday morning, there is a Resident Case Presentation Conference with the Program Director in which a resident prepares interesting cases in advance and shows them as unknowns to the other residents. These conferences usually focus on the more esoteric and unusual diagnoses and draw heavily upon both the Department’s and outside teaching files. Observation, description and the differential diagnosis of findings are stressed. Within the past few years, residents have used this forum to develop and enhance their digital presentation skills.

Once a month, all residents review the appropriate, recent radiologic literature with emphasis on developing a critical analysis of the articles chosen. This Journal Club, is monitored by Dr. Cheryl Kirby, is attended by all of the residents and appropriate staff.

On most Wednesday mornings, a special Combined Staff-Resident Case Conference is held. The emphasis during these conferences is on radiologic diagnosis, patient management and the proper use of the multiple imaging modalities available to radiologists. On some Wednesday mornings, the pathologically-proven missed or misinterpreted studies are shown during Morbidity/Mortality Conference with the goal of making appropriate teaching points to avoid such occurrences in the future.

The other morning conferences are clinically-oriented, resident film-reading sessions. These include a biweekly, modality-specific conference in Angio/Interventional, a biweekly conference in Thoracic Radiology, and a monthly Cardiac Radiology Conference.

Noon Conferences

Each day at noon there is a resident film-reading session for one hour.

During these noon conferences, residents generally discuss cases which are unknown to them and their discussion is guided by the assigned staff in attendance with active participation by the other residents. During each four-week cycle of conferences, all of the major subspecialty areas of diagnostic radiology are covered at least once, some twice, a few three times.

Most conferences have case material generated by the staff although at least six conferences each month have cases selected by the resident. One of these resident-generated conferences is a potpourri of cases with the Chairman of the Department and two others are held with the Program Director. The residents are expected to select cases, abstract the pertinent clinical information, guide the discussion and introduce outside reading they have done about the cases.

Selection of cases is guided by the written curriculum for that subspecialty. We attempt to cover almost all of the written curriculum every two years so that every resident is exposed to the full curriculum at least twice during the Program.

Wednesday Afternoon Conferences

Each month, from September through May, a physician recognized as an expert in his or her field is invited to present to our residents as a Guest Lecturer. The Department sponsors an annual visiting professorship as well.

Other Conferences

Interdepartmental or combined clinician-radiologist conferences involving our Department include the Neuroradiology, the Pediatric, the Pathology, several Ob-Gyne conferences, and the Transplant Conferences.

All of our residents attend the four-week course at the AFIP in radiologic pathology. In addition, all residents participate in 52, one-hour radiologic-pathology conferences offered jointly by the Departments of Radiology and Pathology. In this monthly conference, the most interesting and educational gross pathologic specimens removed by our surgical staff in the previous month are brought to the conference where a staff pathologist goes over the pathology while a staff radiologist and our residents review the accompanying imaging study.

Senior residents occasionally accompany faculty and serve as the Department representative to several scheduled, multi-departmental clinical conferences in the Hospital. These conferences include the biweekly GI Oncology Conference, the monthly GI Radiology Grand Rounds, the Tumor Board, Lymphoma/Leukemia Conference, Prostate Carcinoma Conference and Breast Pathology Conference.

Outside Conferences

There are numerous city-wide conferences, lectures, meetings and seminars in radiology in the City of Philadelphia which the residents are encouraged to attend.

Monthly society meetings in the City focus on MRI, neuroradiology, mammography, ultrasound, interventional radiology, and orthopedic radiology with pathologic correlation. Philadelphia radiologists lecture on important radiologic topics aimed specifically at residents, and nationally prominent radiologists are invited to speak at the monthly meeting of the Philadelphia Roentgen Ray Society.

The Department sponsors our residents’ registration, lodging and travel expenses so that they can attend two, nationally-sponsored conferences of proven educational value during the four years of the Program, in addition to the department subsidy for the AFIP course. The residents attend the annual meeting of the Radiologic Society of North America as one of these conferences and a week-long educational conference of the resident’s choice (with the Program Director’s approval) serves as the second sponsored meeting.

In addition, residents may be subsidized if they present an original scientific work at a national meeting and both our incoming and outgoing Chief Residents are fully subsidized to attend the annual American Association of Academic Chief Residents in Radiology national meeting.