Temple University Hospital, the major clinical teaching facility of Temple University School of Medicine, was founded in 1891. Today's modern facility serves as both a tertiary referral center and a primary health provider for the surrounding community. The SmithKline Beecham Department of Diagnostic Imaging performs more than 275,000 procedures annually. The following provides insight into some of the hospital's extensive patient care services, research activities, and the Department of Radiology residency and fellowship training programs.

Department of Radiology: Residency and Fellowship Program

The Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program has been in continuous existence since 1932 and has trained more than 330 radiologists. While much has changed in the past 75 years, the principal objectives of the program have been constant. The goals are to equip our trainees with highly developed interpretative and procedural skills, provide them the opportunity to develop and refine their clinical judgment, encourage them to explore the world of research, and ultimately prepare them to thrive in the practice environment of their choice.

The residency in Diagnostic Radiology is a four-year program and provides all requirements for certification by the American Board of Radiology. The program is fully accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. There are a total of 24 residency positions, six per year. Prior to matriculation, each resident must have completed a minimum of one year of clinical graduate medical training.

The entering resident takes part in an orientation program that begins with an introduction to radiation physics and safety, diagnostic technique, and department functions. The main component of the program is a didactic course in clinical radiology, consisting of more than 50 hours of instruction in which a basic general radiologic text, Brant and Helms, is reviewed with faculty.

The clinical services of the Department of Radiology are divided into subspecialty sections and further divided as subsections. Each section has a physician assigned administratively as section chief. Residents rotate through the various sections and, therefore, receive their training from subspecialty experts. Each section provides the resident with the required interpretation and procedure skills. The rotation system provides progressive experience so that the resident tackles more complex procedures only after mastering the more basic ones. It is firm Department of Radiology policy for the staff radiologists to review every study seen by a resident before formal report approval. The Department is fully digital and practically films, affording residents the opportunity to learn image interpretation in a modern PACS environment with voice recognition for transcription.

Concentrated training is offered in each of the following:

* Breast imaging
* Gastrointestinal radiology
* Genitourinary radiology
* Musculoskeletal radiology
* Neuroradiology
* Interventional neuroradiology
* Nuclear medicine
* Pediatric radiology
* Thoracic radiology
* Ultrasonography
* Vascular/interventional radiology
* Magnetic resonance imaging
* Emergency radiology

The Department provides patient care and residency training in all imaging modalities using state-of-the-art equipment. Four months are spent in pediatric radiology using the combined resources of two outstanding pediatric facilities, Temple University Children's Medical Center and, through an affiliation agreement, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. While on rotation at Temple University Hospital, pediatric radiology is integrated with adult radiology in some subsections, further enhancing the pediatric radiology training and experience.

Most residents choose to spend a six-week elective taking the Radiologic Pathology course at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington, D.C. with financial support by the Temple University Hospital for tuition and lodging. Nine weekly teaching conferences are scheduled. All are prepared and conducted by the faculty and/or fellows.

Didactic lectures representing the core curriculum cover all aspects of radiology. Interdepartmental conferences are based on clinical case material and feature active resident participation from all clinical services. The radiology conference is fully digitized with video capabilities. Formal physics instruction includes courses in:

* Physics of diagnostic radiology
* Physics of nuclear medicine
* Principles of radiopharmacy
* Radiation biology

Each year, the Department invites a series of visiting professors who spend up to two days in residence. Additional city-wide conferences and lectures held under the aegis of the Philadelphia Roentgen Ray Society or city-wide radiology clubs such as the monthly city-wide Pediatric Radiology Conference at St. Christopher's Children's Hospital provide further opportunities for structured learning. The Department of Radiology also currently authorizes each resident to attend one national meeting or course, usually during the last year of training.

Residents are encouraged to participate in research projects and in the preparation of manuscripts for publication. The Department provides financial support for residents to present their research findings to local or national radiological meetings.

Residents handle night and weekend call in rotation. New residents spend time on-call with senior residents in order to acquire sufficient experience to serve. Radiology staff is always available to supervise any procedure or to provide back-up interpretation using teleradiology. A faculty member for each subspecialty area is assigned to interpret studies on the weekend.

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This information is reposted with thanks to Temple University Hospital.