Virtual tour

We would like to introduce you to our radiology department. We will take you on a brief virtual tour and highlight some of the main areas where you will spend most of your time during your training here at UC Davis.

Neuroradiology

We will begin in the neuroradiology reading room. In the neuro reading room, residents, fellows, and attendings work at their own dedicated work-stations but together in teams to handle different responsibilities.

The consult resident is in charge of overseeing all inpatient and emergency room studies and making sure these studies are dictated in a timely manner. It is during this time, residents become comfortable making acute decisions which will affect medical management. Frequently inpatient clinical teams come to the neuro room in person to review studies, this resident along with their attending will be responsible to answer their questions.

The spine resident and attending cover all procedures during the rotation, including lumbar punctures, myelograms, vertebroplasties, and intrathecal chemotherapy treatments. When the resident is not performing procedures, they help read the outpatient imaging studies. The 3rd team focuses on reading the outpatient studies which are scanned in the main hospital, our ambulatory care center, or one of the other UC Davis imaging centers in the greater Sacramento area.

IR

This work room is located immediately adjacent to the 5 IR suites and is adjacent to the neuroradiology reading room.  The day starts at 7am, where the fellow and resident pre-round for the morning cases and assess overnight cases and consults. Morning rounds begin every morning at 7:30 am, led by the residents to make all team members are aware of the cases for the day, which include IR attendings, fellows, nurses, IR technologists, and physician assistants. Throughout the day, this is our home-base between performing procedures and seeing consults, and coordinating aftercare visits.

Body

This is an example of one of the body rooms along our long body hallway, which is currently being renovated. The body hallway is located at the heart of the radiology department. A mix of residents, fellows, and attendings share this space to read MRI, CT, ultrasound, and fluoroscopy studies. Since we rotate on so many rotations in this area, we spend a significant amount of our training here. It is an ideal collaborative space where we can easily walk a few steps down the hall to get another radiologist’s opinion or share interesting cases.

Body IR

During the body intervention rotation, we focus on procedures and read diagnostic studies when time allows. Typically, our team working in this room consists of an attending, a fellow, and a nurse. The fellow and resident lead rounds every morning and field consults throughout the day. We have a paracentesis/thoracentesis clinic run by our radiology NPs and body attendings where R1s get their initial hands on experience. Shortly thereafter, residents participate in a variety of cases including radiofrequency ablations, drain placements,  and US and CT guided biopsies. Residents enjoy having this additional procedure rotation in addition to interventional radiology.

ER

We spend a lot of time in the ER reading room since it serves as the home base for our chest radiograph and CT rotations as well as for our call shifts (including overnight shifts for R3s and R4s). It is located right next to the ER, so clinicians frequently drop by to ask questions and review imaging. We have an administrative assistant in this room 24/7 to help triage phone calls. Additionally, it is located next to several of our CT scanners so we easily pop over for CT procedures (like lung biopsies).

Pediatrics

In the pediatrics reading room, we sit at dedicated workstations to read and collaborate on cases with pediatric teams. It is located right next to the dedicated and newly-renovated pediatric fluoroscopy room for quick access to procedures. We work closely with dedicated child life staff who help kids feel comfortable and enjoy their visit to Radiology!

Resident library

We are fortunate to have our own newly-renovated Radiology resident library. Here, we have 2 computers, a large HDTV, our mail, large comfortable couches, and desks. Some residents will use this space to play board games after work. You can also find resident portraits we painted for each other during our most recent Resident Retreat - some are better painters than others...

Nuclear medicine

In the nuclear medicine reading room, we learn all aspects of general nuclear medicine (including I-131 therapies, lymphoscintigraphy, Radium-223 injections for treatment of osseous metastases, Lutathera for neuroendocrine tumors, and many more), cardiac nuclear medicine (myocardial perfusion imaging, cardiac amyloid, sarcoid, and  viability studies), and PET. Residents work closely with the nuclear medicine technologists to learn nuclear medicine physics, quality control, and how images are acquired. On the first rotation, R1s focus on general nuclear medicine and cardiac. Throughout later rotations, R2-R4s also have dedicated weeks to read PET/CTs. We have a new, state of the art scanner - the EXPLORER - which has been used extensively in both research and clinical applications.

Breast

Here in one of the breast imaging reading rooms in the Lawrence Ellison  Ambulatory Care Center (ACC) located a short walk from the main hospital. Both Hologic and PACS workstations are available at every desk. We work with fellows and attendings on screening mammography, diagnostic mammography/ultrasounds, MRIs, and performing all image guided procedures under all modalities (including stereotactic, ultrasound-guided, and MRI-guided biopsies, and wire and seed-locations). Mammography rooms, dedicated breast ultrasound rooms, procedures rooms, and the technologist work area are right next to each other. 

Musculoskeletal (MSK)

This is the MSK reading room which is located in the Lawrence Ellison Ambulatory Care Center (ACC). During your first year you will get experience reading MSK plain films and progress to reading CT and MRIs as you progress during residency. There are two reading rooms, with this being the upper floor reading room.  In addition to your diagnostic responsibilities, residents will be involved with MSK procedures including steroid injections, arthrograms, and bone biopsies. There are multidisciplinary events happening every week which include sarcoma to  interesting case conferences. During your senior year you may be asked to lead one of these conferences.