Longtime Volunteer Ready for New Duties
By Rodney Campbell, ABR Communications Manager
2025;18(4):8
After 17 years as an ABR volunteer, Will Breeden, MS, wasn’t ready to stop contributing when his term as a committee chair was recently set to end.
He had spent all his volunteer time working on Continuing Certification committees, including the past five years as the Online Longitudinal Assessment (OLA) Nuclear Medicine Physics Chair. Even with those duties coming to a close, he wanted to keep contributing.
“I still wanted to be active with the ABR,” Will said. “I feel like I’ve been doing it almost my whole career. I would feel lost if I weren’t doing something with the ABR.”
The ABR was equally motivated to keep him on board. The good news is that both sides got what they wanted when Will moved to an oral exam question writing committee in January, ensuring that a tenured and knowledgeable volunteer wouldn’t be going away.
Will was taking on a different kind of work, as a volunteer involved in the medical physics Initial Certification process. Same goal – creating questions that prove nuclear medical physicists are qualified for their duties – different audience. From experienced diplomates to less-seasoned candidates.
“I really welcomed it because it was a breath of fresh air,” he said. “It’s a totally different thought process of how you create a question and what we’re looking for in an oral exam question.”
His experience writing “walking-around knowledge” questions for OLA participants has helped. He’s also been an oral examiner, so he knows the candidate audience.
“You’re trying to determine whether your question fits for oral initial certification,” Will said. “Does the candidate have enough knowledge to be able to function clinically at a certain level of competence that the board has come to expect?”
As is the case with most ABR volunteers who write OLA and exam questions, Will has always found inspiration at work. He’s a diagnostic radiological and medical nuclear physicist and radiation safety officer at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. He often finds potential questions in his everyday activities, giving OLA and Initial Certification exams a real-life connection.
“I’ll make a little note and jot it down on my phone, ‘Hey, this could be a good question, or this could be good for OLA,’” he said.
Will has found that serving as a volunteer has helped him professionally. Getting together with other subject-matter experts from his field is often an educational experience.
“There are so many smart and talented medical physicists who volunteer,” he said. “When we sit down for a session, whether we’re approving the questions for next year’s OLA or writing questions, I usually learn something or I look at things from a different perspective.”
Former ABR Trustee Robert Pooley, MD, worked with Will when he was on the Continuing Certification committee. Dr. Pooley, a medical physicist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Florida, has high praise for his colleague.
“Will Breeden is one of the most dedicated ABR volunteers with whom I have worked,” Dr. Pooley said. “He has always made himself available to ABR staff and Trustees, taking care of committee work quickly and efficiently, and ensuring smooth operations. He was asked on many occasions to assist with additional projects related to Continuing Certification and he always participated, contributing his expert knowledge and advice to improve the ABR’s nuclear medical physics work.”
As one of more than 1,300 ABR volunteers, Will plays a pivotal role in serving his field and patients. He and his colleagues’ contributions of time and expertise make the Initial and Continuing Certification processes for medical physics and the ABR’s other three specialties fair and relevant. He’s done it long enough to know.
“The level of detail and the amount of effort that goes into making the whole certification process from start to finish meaningful and worthwhile for the profession is important,” he said. “There’s no way it happens without the combination of the ABR staff and the physics community in a volunteer capacity.”
Her Pursuit of Radiology Career Was Worth the Wait
By Rodney Campbell, ABR Communications Manager
2025;18(4):6
It took Riddhi Borse, MD, until her fourth year of medical school in India to decide which medical specialty she wanted to pursue.
A family health crisis was the deciding factor when she ultimately chose radiology. Dr. Borse’s father fell ill and needed a lymph node biopsy performed by an interventional radiologist to determine the cause.
The experience was life-changing for father and daughter.
“Luckily, the interventional radiologist had trained in the United States and let me watch the procedure,” she said. “It was an important thing for me to see because it was a crucial diagnosis. People thought it was lymphoma, and it turned out my father had tuberculosis. The procedure made all the difference in his prognosis, and he’s healed today.”
Inspired by what she learned, Dr. Borse set her sights on radiology training in the United States. She did a few electives, including one in radiology at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) that she completed in February 2018.
“It was quite a pivot in my medical career,” she said.
She returned to India and graduated from medical school that May. Having been offered a post-doctoral research fellow position at MGH three months earlier, she had to act quickly, leaving the day after earning her medical degree at Topiwala National Medical College in Mumbai on a flight to Boston.
She’s been diligent since arriving here, wrapping a preliminary year at St. Vincent Hospital, completing a diagnostic radiology residency at Yale New Haven Hospital on the early specialization in interventional radiology (IR) pathway, and finishing an independent IR residency at MGH this past June.
“What motivated me every step of the way was that I thought I would function well in this system,” Dr. Borse said. “I have so much admiration for the way education, training, and patient care are practiced in the United States.”
Dania Daye, MD, who was at MGH, is now director of the Center for High Value Imaging and vice chair of practice transformation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health.
She met Dr. Borse last year when she started her IR residency. Dr. Daye appreciates the passion her colleague brings to work and believes that she will make significant contributions to the IR field.
“From the moment I met her, I knew she was someone with great potential and that she would undoubtedly have a great impact on our field,” Dr. Daye said. “She is a stellar clinician, educator, and researcher, with a deep passion for our specialty and commitment to her patients. I look forward to seeing all the great things that she will do in her career.”
One of the ways Dr. Borse is giving back is by serving on the ABR’s IR Initial Certification Advisory Committee. The group includes physicians who are pursuing Initial Certification and others who are participating in Continuing Certification. The committee serves as a conduit between the ABR and those seeking board certification.
“I can unify voices and experiences to advocate to the committee what trainees are going through,” she said. “It’s right in my mind. It’s all fresh now and I come with a plethora of experiences.”
Since Dr. Borse joined, the committee has met once — during the Society for Interventional Radiology annual meeting in Nashville this past March. The session left her hopeful that her contributions would be impactful after seeing her colleagues listening to varied opinions.
“You feel like (the ABR is) a large board, unreachable and untouchable,” she said. “But it was very surprising to note that the stalwarts in the field and even the young attendings really paid heed to the voices of everyone on the committee.”
After seeking and receiving feedback from dozens of representatives from the field, the ABR earlier this year chose to have IR/DR candidates take the new DR Oral Certifying Exam starting in 2029 instead of the computer-based component of the IR/DR Certifying Exam. Dr. Borse and her fellow committee members are already providing feedback on timing and other matters related to candidates taking two oral certifying exams.
“I think we’re meeting the needs of both sides,” she said. “Promoting excellence in imaging interpretation in addition to being a skilled interventionalist is something I saw the ABR working on as part of the discussion.”
After passing the Qualifying (Core) Exam in 2023, Dr. Borse will be sitting for the IR/DR Certifying Exam next spring. She sees board certification as proof that, like the interventional radiologist who treated her father, she’s earned the right to be a physician.
“Board certification means that I’m demonstrating that I’m not just all talk,” she said. “I have the knowledge to be a radiologist who can safely take care of patients.”
Committee Puts Emphasis on Image Quality for Exams
By Daniel C. Davis, MD, ABR Trustee; Stephen F. Simoneaux, MD, ABR Governor; Brian J. Davis, MD, PhD, ABR Trustee; Lydia Warg, ABR Associate Director of Exam Services; and Scott Segal, ABR Director of IT
2025;18(4):3
The Image Quality Committee, which has representatives from all four disciplines the ABR certifies, is one of several standing committees that meet semiannually during ABR Board meetings. The committee makes recommendations regarding image quality and works behind the scenes to offer best practices regarding image submissions.
ABR Governor Stephen Simoneaux, MD, noted variation in image quality while serving as the diagnostic radiology Trustee for pediatrics. To improve image quality and standardize acquisition, he formed an Imaging Task Force in 2019 that eventually became the Image Quality Committee.
Quality is a vital element in the image-rich diagnostic radiology and interventional radiology/diagnostic radiology qualifying and certifying exams, as well as in OLA. Radiation oncology and medical physics exams, especially the oral certifying exams, also include images. The ABR strives to use high-quality images that don’t include extraneous information or distractions, such as patient motion, poorly positioned views, or secondary diagnoses. Technical artifacts may be intentionally included if the concept is relevant to that discipline and part of the assessment. Cross-sectional imaging has improved considerably in the last 20 years, so we work to use images that are contemporary.
Volunteer question writers receive guidance for saving images from their PACS and uploading them into the ABR’s question banking software. These images must not contain any protected health information. Question writers have the option of uploading static images, a series of static images (stacks), and short cine clips. Images can be reformatted to fit ABR size standards while still maintaining resolution and quality. Question writers are encouraged to add relevant arrows or text labels to the images using the ABR’s image upload tool. Modality metadata added to each image is helpful when assembling test modules.
The ABR’s editorial staff reviews all new questions to make sure they meet a certain standard, and accompanying images are reviewed by image processing specialists. At least three members of the appropriate clinical committee vet newly created questions and attached images before they are accepted for future deployment in OLA or on a test module. Frequently, during these reviews, the committee will eliminate redundant images, add clarifying text or arrows, or ask the question writer to obtain additional images to improve the question. Some questions are rejected if the images are confusing or of marginal quality. Periodically, each committee reviews banked questions that are greater than 10 years old to make sure the images meet current standards, and that the content of the questions is current and tests a relevant concept.
In the last few years, the Image Quality Committee, after collaborating with the Language and Style Committee, adopted the standard that MRI images for all future questions will have the specific sequence type labeled, unless the sequence type is part of the content being assessed. All breast images also have standardized labels for orientation. The committee has worked with the RO trustees regarding potential issues for examinees with color-blindness. Certain treatment charts may have graphs in red or green. These color-coded charts are reviewed by the image processing staff using a software tool that helps ensure an examinee will not encounter confusion viewing them. Additionally, this committee has provided advice on the maximum number of images in a stack and length of cine clips, to minimize download times and image review time by the examinee.
Going forward, the Image Quality Committee is collaborating with the ABR’s IT department to develop a platform for how examinees will view images attached to questions. Compared with the current version, this new platform will function more like a simplified version of a PACS. This will be rolled out to question writers and used in all exam platforms in 2026. The ABR is very excited about this upgrade, since it will more closely mimic how examinees view images at their home institution. For instance, an examinee will be able to view up to six series at once, with the option to simply click on an image to enlarge it. As before, the examinee will be able to further magnify, pan, or change the contrast settings of each image.
