Radiology

This month I'm in radiology at San Francisco General Hospital. The radiology elective is a mix between didactics and practical reading of radiographs. We have regular daily medical student lectures which have been outstanding, focusing on relevant intern-year problems such as the acute abdomen, chest X-rays, thoracic trauma, lines and tubes, etc. Radiology has become so much more relevant after my clinical rotations. When we were first exposed in anatomy, radiology baffled me; even the basics such as right and left confused me and I simply did not have the spatial resolution capacity to reconstruct CTs in my head. But after my neurology, surgery, and medicine rotations, I've gotten much more comfortable with common radiologic appearances and studies. So now that I can make clinical correlates of the images, these lectures have much more relevance.

This learning is paired with reading room experiences where we shadow residents as they read studies. Real images, unlike teaching files, are often confusing, vague, complicated, or indeterminate. Often, clinical teams will come down to ask for help; it's always useful for me to hear the clinical presentation of the patient. So far, I've found myself reviewing a lot of basic anatomy that I've forgotten such as the blood supply of the gut. I hope this will prepare me to read my own studies as an intern next year.

Image is in the public domain, taken from Wikipedia.