Certificate in Primary Care Radiology

About the Course

General practitioners and family physicians who are the first point of medical contact are very important for the health of a community. However commercialization, corporatization, specialist reductionist approach to health and increasing patient awareness and medicolegal litigations have made general practice difficult. Investigations are increasingly being ordered in defence against law suits apart from diagnostic purposes. Radiology and imaging given its intrinsic quality of being non invasive and informative they are one of the most prescribed investigations.
In such a scenario General Practitioners should be abreast with the relevant knowledge in Radiology. Busy practitioners find it difficult to take time away from their busy schedules for this and here is where continuous online medical education comes in handy and makes such doctor’s lives easy.
Recognizing this potential, IMA eVarsity has designed the six months certificate course in Primary Care Radiology, which imparts enough knowledge and skills for a busy practitioner.
The course is for those who wish to develop knowledge and skills in Radiology and Imaging and for all those who wish to better manage radiology investigations in their daily practice. The course is run over six months, using a blended approach, comprising of self-paced online education, complimented case based discussion and graded assessments.

Career Prospects

The aim of the IMA eVarsity programs is to enhance the knowledge and practical skills of general physicians and family physicians. It prepares you as a clinician, with comprehensive and up-to-date knowledge in specific areas and allows you to confidently deal with patients.
The six months Certificate in Primary Care Radiology aims at imparting you with basic, simple and yet up-to-date knowledge in Radiology at primary care level. The course hones your skills on when to prescribe what imaging investigations, how to interpret them and when to ask for a specialist radiologist opinion.

What are the key Features of the program?
The program was designed using scientific pedagogic principles to incorporate features drawn from successful on-campus and distance education. These features offer an appreciable advantage by enabling students to:

• Have sound knowledge related to the basics of Radiology at primary care level.
• Develop skills, knowledge and attitudes through a structured online learning experience. The learning experience will be delivered through various technology driven teaching-learning approaches
• Study through virtual cases and discussions that simulate approaches to the real world scenarios

Recommended Background / Entry Requirements

Six months Certificate program in Primary Care Radiology is offered to General practitioners, where the entry requirement is MBBS from any recognised Indian University. Candidates who have done MD (equivalent to MBBS of India) from Russia, China and so on and foreign medical graduates who are desirous of taking the course will need to register with the Medical Council of India. Candidates have to be registered Life Members of the Indian Medical Association.
Candidates should have a clear aptitude for the program and aspire to pursue higher education in this speciality.

• Admissions to the course will be bi-annual.
• You may register online or contact your local IMA chapter.
• You may register up to six months in advance and not more than one week after course starts.

Course Syllabus

• Introduction to imaging modalities
• Image quality control and optimization
• Digital imaging and telemedicine
• Chest and pulmonary imaging
• Cardiac and mediastinal imaging
• Musculoskeletal patterns
• Abdominal and urogenital imaging
• CNS and ENT imaging

Course Delivery Format

The courses of the IMA eVarsity are largely delivered online, with convenient self-study at one’s own pace, time and place facilitated through online faculty.
A rich learning environment is provided through the SmarTeach Learning Platform with access to:

• Online lectures delivered by experts in respective fields. You may view the lecture any number of times using interactive tools to conveniently play/pause, forward /rewind, skip/review.
• Included in these lectures are numerous text slides, illustrations and appropriate 2D and 3D animations, audios/videos to make concepts easy to understand and difficult to forget.
• Reading material includes prescribed Text book and e-Books for each chapter.
• Facility for the student to bookmark specific segments of a running lecture and ability to add your own notes for later review.
• Periodic self-assessment through multiple choice objective questions from a question bank of over 1, 00,000 questions across all subject areas.
• Case based scenarios and simulated case based exercises.
• Online contact sessions through e mail, Web chat and scheduled web sessions with a national faculty.
• Lessons shall be progressively delivered on a weekly basis. Once you go through the module for a particular week by viewing the lecture, completing the reading assignments and completing the self-assessment, you shall get access to the next week’s program.
• Optional Tablet mode available for convenience of self-study without need for Internet connectivity.

Assessment

• There shall be periodic self-assessments at the end of each module and final exam. Your grades in these formative assessments shall carry predetermined weightage.
• Degrees and Certificates shall be awarded during the Annual Convocation of the IMA eVarsity held in the city hosting the Annual IMA eVarsity National Conference.

How is the course accredited?

• The IMA eVarsity has a vast network of affiliations both National and International for accreditation of its courses. Among them, the prominent ones are the University of Sydney (Australia), the George Washington University (USA), Colombo University (Sri Lanka) and many centers of excellence throughout the country which offer great academic and clinical material.
• Certificate course in Primary Care Radiology is accredited by the IMA College of General Practitioners itself.
• CME course modules offered by the IMA eVarsity are accredited by the Medical Council and are valid credits for re-registration of medical practitioners as per the new law and are available on the IMA eVarsity website with a nominal fee.

Admission Schedule

• Admissions to the course would be half yearly .
• You may register online or contact your local IMA chapter.
• You may register upto six months in advance and not more than one week after the course starts.

Course At A Glance

• Course: Certificate Course in Primary Care Radiology
• Total Duration: 6 months
• Hours per week: 4 – 8
• Medium of instruction: English