This year, Georgetown increased the percentage of Radiology questions on our practical exams to 25%. That means that 1 in 4 of our questions will look like this:
Borrowed from: Interactive Atlas of Human Anatomy: SECTION: ANATOMY OF THE THORAX, ABDOMEN, AND PELVIS, Published on Sunday 24 August 2008 by Antoine Micheau, MD, Denis Hoa, MD
Of course, it will be unlabelled. Most of our questions on CT images will have 5 arrows pointing to different structures in the image. The questions are more than identification questions, but will tie in correlates. For example, 'an obstruction at which structure will cause ischemia of the ascending colon, disregarding all other anastomoses?' So you, as the student would know that the ascending colon is supplied by the right colic artery, which is a branch off the Superior Mesenteric Artery, which comes off the aorta around the vertebral level of L1. Now the only thing you have to do is locate it in the image.
It ends up being a pretty rewarding feeling when you can look at a CT and figure out what's wrong. Although it does add another item to study, it will surely be helpful in the future.
Back to studying for tomorrow's GI Exam!
I am a bit worried about the increase in the number of such questions because they can be a bit tricky.
Posted by: Sammy Moves | 02/03/2012 at 10:58 AM