News
Discover inspiring stories from our volunteers, candidates, and community, and stay up to date with important news and announcements on exams, policies, and more.
Residency leave feedback deadline moved to April 30
In an effort to welcome as much feedback as possible, the ABR is extending the deadline to April 30 for comments on a new residency leave policy. We are seeking feedback so that we may develop a plan before July 1 to comply with an ABMS requirement announced last year to clearly state these requirements in our…
Stakeholders support increase in residency leave time
The ABR continues to gather input from our stakeholder groups, especially trainees and program faculty, regarding our residency leave policy that is under development. The American Board of Medical Specialties (ABMS) has mandated that the individual specialty boards, including the ABR, establish clear limits on how much time away from training is permissible before training…
NRC Approves Authorized User-Eligible Designation for Candidates Earning IR/DR Certification
Last month, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a letter to the American Board of Radiology (ABR), recognizing its Interventional Radiology/Diagnostic Radiology (IR/DR) certification process. The ABR IR/DR certification process meets the applicable requirements in Title 10 of the Code of Federal Regulations (10 CFR) 35.290 and 35.394 for NRC recognition effective March 2021. All…
Stressed in Cincinnati: Addressing Interruptions in Children’s Hospital Reading Room
The reading room is the center of diagnostic function in a radiology department. It’s also the site of numerous interruptions as radiologists perform complex tasks. At Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, diagnostic radiologists were being interrupted on average every 186 seconds. The distractions were numerous: phone calls, clinical questions, pages, and more. Ethan Smith, MD,…
Eleven Members Named to IR/DR IC Advisory Committee
March 29, 2021Contact: Rodney Campbellrcampbell@theabr.org The ABR has named 11 members to its first Initial Certification Advisory Committee for Interventional Radiology/Diagnostic Radiology. Members were nominated by the Society of Interventional Radiology (SIR), SIR Resident, Fellow and Student Section; SIR Early Career Section; and the Association of Program Directors in Interventional Radiology (APDIR). The committee’s mission…
Blazing Trails and Breaking Barriers: Celebrating Women Innovators in Medicine and Radiology
By A. Nina Watson, MD As a female radiologist, I’ve gotten accustomed to the surprised looks, and occasional raised eyebrows I sometimes receive when I tell people I’m a physician. While women physicians are on the frontlines of medical breakthroughs and patient care, we are still underrepresented in radiology. A recent study revealed that female…
ABR Looking for Feedback on Residency Service-Time Requirement
The ABR is seeking input from stakeholders regarding minimum requirements for time served during residency while avoiding an extension of training to be considered board eligible. We are actively seeking comment now so that we may develop a reasonable plan before July 1 to comply with an ABMS requirement announced last year to clearly state these requirements in our policies. Extreme scenarios might…
Future Residents Make Match Day Memories
This is a long-awaited time for aspiring medical residents. Match Week 2021 kicked off Monday when future residents learned whether they had a match. Those who did will find out Friday where they will be spending their residencies. The process begins in the fall during the final year of medical school, when residents apply to…
Anxiety, Joy, Relief: Resident Matching Program Delivers Range of Emotions
By Hala Mazin, MD I grew up thinking the most memorable moment in my life might be the day I got married or when I saw my child for the first time. I never imagined it would come in an email from the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP). It was an email I had worked…
Board Drops ‘Conditioning’ Status for Core Exam
The ABR Board decided last week, effective for 2021 and beyond, to eliminate the “conditioning” result for candidates who passed the overall Core Exam but did not meet the specific passing threshold for physics. In recent years, this has affected less than 1% of candidates. This change aligns the scoring model for physics with the clinical and modality portions of…
Ten Things Young Medical Physicists Should Do to Kick-Start Their Careers
By Raghavendiran Boopathy, PhD; Malcolm Heard, PhD; and James A Tanyi, PhD In our professional lives, we all have had moments where we wished we had done things or approached problems differently. In writing this article, our purpose is to give a perspective for the future generation looking to make an impact in medical physics….
Experienced AEDs Fill Important Roles as Staff
They have decades of combined experience in their fields. They have spent years as ABR volunteers, working on committees and as oral examiners. Now, they are part-time staff who serve as associate executive directors (AEDs), helping connect the ABR with its many stakeholders. Paul Wallner, DO, is the AED with most tenure, having held the…
ABR Trustee Seeing COVID’s Impacts at Home
By Catheryn Yashar, MD My healthy husband’s first cough was March 9, 2020. Thankfully, he has nearly recovered. That day he was worried, so he wandered down to the ER and was reassured the virus “isn’t here yet.” He called in sick the next day. Five days later, he was either sleeping or coughing. Meals…
Four Ways to Make the Most of Your Radiology Residency
By Hala Mazin, MD The resident match is one of the most exciting times in your medical school career. It is what you have been working so hard to reach for the last four years! This virtual match season poses new challenges; it may be difficult to decipher your best fit and which program will…
Survey Respondents Give OLA 4.1 Rating
Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) has been around for two years, including an entire year when diplomates from all four specialties participated. With more than 3.5 million answers submitted, many participants say it has been an effective way of satisfying Part 3 of Maintenance of Certification. More than 6,000 diplomates participated in a recent survey in…