The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education reported that residents should have at least one year of radiological training before they take call, and a Harvard study is in support of this decision. Residents were tested by Dr. Suvranu Ganguli and colleagues at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center using a DICOM-based simulation module after a month-long emergency radiology lecture series ran from 2004 through 2008.

The computer-based testing module included actual emergency room cases. It helped investigators review and compare first-year and upper-level resident call preparedness. The study found that the core curriculum training module alone did not prepare first-year residents to the level of call preparedness that had been obtained by their upper-level colleagues.

The findings were published in the February 2009 issue of the American Journal of Roentgenology (2009;192:539-544).