Diagnostic radiology residents get top national ranking during board exam
A resident performs a diagnostic procedure on a patient using the SKYLight nuclear imaging system at University Hospital.
The University of Louisville diagnostic radiology residency program achieved the highest scores in the nation on the American Board of Radiology's 2006 written medical physics examination.
The program is ranked first among 203 residency programs in the United States and Canada whose graduates are required to pass the exam to achieve board certification. Just two years ago, UofL residents scored in the 50th percentile on the same exam.
Gregory Postel, M.D., chair of the Department of Diagnostic Radiology, attributes the program's high score to a team effort between the residents and Chin Ng, M.D., associate professor of radiology, who was recruited to UofL in 2002 to direct the university's molecular imaging core facility.
"Dr. Ng has worked tirelessly to create a curriculum that includes more than 60 hours a year of physics training for diagnostic radiology," Postel said. "The residents take hundreds of practice exam questions and complete a weeklong review course in California. This achievement is the result of a great deal of hard work."
The ranking comes at a time when some in the academic medical community are calling for removal of the basic sciences, including physics, from the pre-medical curriculum. In a recent letter to the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, School of Medicine Dean Edward Halperin, M.D., M.A., objected to this trend, citing numerous examples of the basic sciences' application in the practice of medicine.
"A firm grounding in physics, organic chemistry and calculus have been, and will remain, crucial for science-based clinical medicine," Halperin said. "I applaud the residents and their teachers for this performance. I know that their understanding of physics in diagnostic radiology will serve them well throughout their careers."
