It is difficult to imagine practicing medicine today without radiology. Therefore, it is vital for medical students to understand how to effectively use radiology in patient care. The radiology rotation provides students an opportunity to review and integrate key lessons from the first two phases of medical school in subjects such as anatomy, physiology and pathology.
Radiology is also the context in which students will most often visualize the inner structure and function of their patients. Students who study radiology gain an opportunity to form indelible images of disease processes and their treatment including fractures, infections, vascular occlusions, neoplasms and more. Radiology ties together the basic sciences and clinical disciplines in a particularly effective manner and plays a major role in answering basic medical questions: Is my patient sick? What is the diagnosis? How far has the disease progressed? Is it responding to therapy? Has it recurred?