FUNDAMENTALS COURSE FOR 1ST-YEAR RADIOLOGY RESIDENTS

Rationale and Objectives. The authors set out to pro- vide 1st-year re sidents with basic knowledge to make conferences more useful, to make their knowledge more uniform, and to assess their competency to begin night call. Materials and Methods. Faculty taught three afternoon sess ions a week in subspecialty areas of radiology, including physics, dur ing the 1st 6 months of residency. Material selected was believed to b e essential for the understanding of that subspecialty's didactic lect ure series. Emphasis was also placed on diagnoses residents would be e xpected to make once they began taking night call. Material was presen ted through lectures, images, and unknown cases. An examination was ad ministered at the end of the course. Residents were allowed to begin n ight can only after completing the course and passing the final examin ation.Results. All Ist-year residents completed the course and passed the examination. Their scores ranged from 70% to 83.3%. Conclusion. Re sidents liked the course and reported feeling ready to begin call. Fac ulty reported the residents who completed the course were more knowled geable prior to formal rotations than residents from previous years wh o had not taken the course.