Resident education is a top priority at Penn Radiology. Our residents work under the supervision of nationally and internationally recognized subspecialty experts. Penn Medicine provides a variety of clinical settings, including a quaternary care center, community hospital, and level one trauma center - allowing for a well-rounded, robust education. Our independent call system is also a unique opportunity to develop your independence through R2-R4.
Conferences
Every morning of Penn Residency begins with 90 minutes of dedicated teaching time, from 7:30 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. The core clinical curriculum involves all R1-R3 residents and covers all subspecialty areas, including physics, in a rotating 18-month schedule. Faculty experts present both clinical and non-clinical material in a variety of formats, including flipped classrooms, team breakout sessions, and traditional formats, among others. Recent innovations to our curriculum have included adding “Personalized Teaching” sessions twice monthly, in which subspecialty sections host residents for small-group case-based section-specific teaching.
In addition, there are dedicated annual mini courses that address the specific needs of each year of residency: July / August contain a dedicated R1 “Introduction to Radiology” curriculum and R2 “ER Radiology Readiness” curriculum. April/May heralds the return of 'Core preparation' curriculum for the R3s.
In 2024, we introduced a longitudinal Oral Exam Prep curriculum for the R1-R3s in which faculty support residents as they take oral boards-style cases independently and as teams. These sessions are designed to build resident confidence in taking an oral case and to allow them to practice thinking through a case out loud in a safe space in preparation for their oral certifying exam (which will be taken after the completion of residency).
A non-clinical curriculum covers a broad range of topics that reinforces other elements of the Penn Residency experience, equipping our residents to become leaders in their careers. The range of topics is outlined below:
- Healthcare Policy and Economics
- Informatics and Health Services Research
- Clinical Research (study design, biostatistics, and the art of writing papers and grants)
- Quality and Safety
- Ethics and Professionalism
- Global Health
- Diversity and Inclusion
- Patient Centered Care
- Journal Club
Each live session is led by a Penn Medicine faculty member or invited lecturer. Conference rooms at our Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Hospital campuses are equipped with video teleconferencing capabilities to maximize audience participation. Lectures are held in a hybrid format with residents watching at the site of lecture and others watching off-site or at home.
Grand Rounds are held bi-monthly and provide an opportunity to host radiology leaders throughout the country and around the world.
Pictured: Distinguished Lecturer, Kathryn Perera, Director, National Health Service (NHS) Horizons, presenting on innovation and challenges during a healthcare crisis.
In addition, many subspecialty sections hold weekly conferences for fellows and rotators. The rise of videoconferencing enables residents to tune into the daily or weekly subspecialty interesting case conferences or tumor boards.
Call
Radiology call exposes residents to a diverse case mix from multiple hospitals in and associated with Penn Medicine. First-year radiology residents gain their initial call experiences by reading radiographs on weekday evening and weekend morning shifts under the supervision of a staff attending radiologist.
Penn Radiology is one of few remaining institutions to maintain independent call for R2-R4s. In their second year, residents take independent call on weekend days and in a Night Float system. For R2s, the primary educational goals of the Night Float rotation are to provide experience on the radiological evaluation of the acutely ill patient, including patients presenting after trauma, and to facilitate residents’ development as independent radiologists. Faculty from each of the subspecialty radiology divisions are available by phone after-hours for any resident questions while on call. Studies are overread 12-24 hours later by a subspecialty staff attending radiologist, as clinical teams at Penn Medicine greatly depend on our residents’ reads. Second-year residents have six weeks of Night Float divided evenly between the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Pennsylvania Hospital. While residents physically read from two different sites, they act as an integrated team reading all studies from a single worklist. A fellow at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania functions as the third member of the Night Float team, reading in parallel from the same worklist as the residents.
Residents in their third and fourth years of training have late afternoon and evening call rotations at Pennsylvania Hospital and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, in which they function independently. At Pennsylvania Hospital, a tertiary care hospital, upper-level residents assist daytime teams with their worklists, creating a varied experience that utilizes a broad base of knowledge from their years of training. In the evening after hours, these residents transition to being the sole reader for inpatient and emergency department studies there. Similar to night float, faculty from each of the subspecialty radiology divisions are available by phone after-hours. At Presbyterian, residents apply their skills to reading cross-sectional imaging at a level 1 trauma center and tertiary care hospital.
All trainees are provided feedback on their interpretations by subspecialty attendings within 12-24 hours through an electronic discrepancy-tracking system. This system serves as a teaching tool and allows residents the flexibility to review their cases when most convenient to them. Wellness is an important milestone and goal for Penn Radiology, especially for residents on call. No shift is scheduled to be longer than 10 hours, and we strongly encourage 10 hours off between call shifts, two hours more than the ACGME requirement of 8 hours.
Evaluations
Multiple assessment tools are used in the evaluation of resident performance. Faculty electronically complete global evaluations of each resident at the end of rotations. Residents can review these online and at semiannual meetings with the Program Director.
Similarly, residents complete anonymous online faculty and rotation evaluations after each two or four week block. Results and comments are taken very seriously at all levels within the department. Results are collated and reviewed every six months in order to make ongoing program improvements.
Accreditation
The training program is accredited by the ACGME. The program fulfills the requirements for certification by the American Board of Radiology in Diagnostic Radiology.