UW Radiology

Abdominal Radiology Fellowship (ACGME)

Overview:

Applications will be accepted on November 1, 2023 for the 2025-2026 training year, with the first day of interviews scheduled for January 8, 2024. Interviews will be open through March 31, 2024.

The Department of Radiology at the University of Washington offers a one-year ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education) accredited fellowship training program in abdominal imaging that includes diagnostic ultrasound, CT, MR, and imaging guided interventions. The training program, which started in 1979, is designed to provide balanced, in-depth experience in all aspects of abdominal imaging for radiologists who have completed formal residency training in diagnostic radiology. Fellows are recruited annually for eight training slots.

We adhere to the most current national and international institutional and consensus guidelines in all aspects of abdominal imaging and contrast media to facilitate a safe, standardized and uniformly recognized approach to diagnosis and management.

Abdominal Radiology Fellowship

Mission Statement

Produce outstanding sub-specialty radiologists with expertise in all aspects of abdominal imaging modalities and diseases in a diverse clinical environment, with emphasis on advanced computed tomography, ultrasound, magnetic resonance imaging and imaging guided procedures.

Program Aims

1. Produce outstanding clinical radiologists sub-specialized in Abdominal Radiology, with advanced knowledge and skills in the application and interpretation of conventional diagnostic imaging techniques and procedures including computed tomography, ultrasonography, magnetic resonance imaging, and common percutaneous non-vascular procedures in gastrointestinal and genitourinary system, including oncologic imaging, surgical imaging, and obstetric imaging.

2. Develop sub-specialty abdominal radiologists with close and collaborative relationships with referring clinicians through multidisciplinary tumor boards and consultations of all forms of diagnostic imaging and interventional procedures that apply to the unique clinical and pathophysiologic problems encountered in the diseases affecting gastrointestinal and genitourinary system.

3. Establish future academic radiologists sub-specialized in Abdominal Radiology who contribute to the University of Washington’s research missions through provision of translational research experiences.

4. Promote and build lifelong and peer learning practice habits by providing opportunities to attend regional and national society meetings and participate in departmental Peer Learning processes.

Facilities and Equipment

We use state of the art equipment from General Electric, Siemens and Philips and are in the fortunate position to offer the newest generations of ultrasound, CT and MR on all sites. For a more detailed description of equipment please refer to our [home page]. All sites (except the Puget Sound Veterans’ Affairs Hospital) are linked through one integrated PACS system, which may be accessed from home on call as well. Integrated speech recognition dictation software is standard on all workstations.

Rotations

The fellowship training includes seven different rotations at four sites. Each fellow rotates through each rotation twice to consolidate knowledge, increase expertise and broaden skills and comfort level on various imaging modalities and procedures. In addition to more traditional diagnostic cross-sectional abdominal imaging, fellows receive training in dedicated applications such as transplant, high-risk obstetrical and contrast enhanced ultrasound, dual energy CT, functional pelvic floor MR, MR elastography, iron and fat quantification, MR lymphangiography, image-guided biopsy procedures including fusion technology, image post-processing and other. Additional training and/or exposure to vascular  CT and MR, or other image-guided procedures in interventional radiology is often available upon request and depending on scheduling and staffing needs. Fellows attend and present at several multidisciplinary tumor boards and conferences during various rotations.

We emphasize close and professional interactions with our radiology and clinical colleagues and compassionate care for all of our patients. Our faculty members have extensive experience in abdominal imaging and are widely published and recognized at local, national, and international levels.

Abdominal Rotations at UWMC-Montlake

With 450 beds the University of Washington Medical Center-Montlake (UWMC-ML) is the largest of our facilities. UWMC-ML has a busy solid organ transplant service as well as multiple sub-specialty services that refer a wide variety of patients to our department. Complicated clinical questions in patients with numerous comorbidities and complex postoperative patients characterize our patient spectrum at UWMC-ML.  In addition, multiple external providers from the metropolitan area of Seattle, surrounding counties and out of state refer patients to UWMC-ML with a large variety of clinical indications for imaging. Fellows will have opportunity to participate multidisciplinary management conferences for liver and genitourinary oncology as well as high risk obstetric patients.

Computed Tomography at UWMC-Montlake

Fellows on this rotation interpret CT exams of the mainly abdomen, and pelvis with attending radiologists in the section. They gain experience in common and more specialized CT techniques including CT angiography, CT colonography, low dose CT, CT angiography and dual energy CT applications as well as in CT post-processing. Fellows learn how to protocol CT examinations, function as consultants and discuss with providers appropriateness criteria, protocol options and contrast related safety matters.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging at UWMC-Montlake

Fellows are responsible in numerous ways for abdominal, pelvic and vascular MR examinations: they interpret images, consult clinical colleagues, discuss MR indications and MR safety issues with providers and protocol MR examinations. Abdominal MR includes a large volume of patients with liver related questions, as three multidisciplinary liver boards are being held every week, which fellows participate in. Besides the use of various gadolinium contrast agents for liver imaging and MRCP, functional liver MR of the liver including iron and fat quantification, diffusion weighted imaging and MR elastography are being offered on a routine basis and as needed. Other exams of the abdomen include pancreas, renal, adrenal MR,  and MR enterography.

Morphologic and dedicated functional MR exams of the pelvis include locoregional rectal cancer staging, imaging of the sphincter complex, pelvic floor dysfunction and urologic (urinary bladder, prostate) and gynecologic MR indications. Specific indications on fetal and placental abnormalities are also addressed by dedicated protocols.

MR lymphangiography is a protocol that was developed at our institution and is being applied with great success for specific preoperative questions on patients with lymphedema and lymphatic leaks on a regular basis.

Ultrasound at UWMC-Montlake

Fellows on this rotation learn to scan with sonographers whenever possible and are oriented to a large variety of abdominal and pelvic sonographic examinations including transplant (liver, kidney and pancreas) Doppler ultrasound, high-risk obstetric ultrasound, as well as general ultrasound protocols. Transplant ultrasound, but also other surgical indications include intraoperative ultrasound, which is mainly covered by ultrasound attendings, however fellows may attend if workload allows. Ultrasound applications also include thyroid gland and neck, abdominal wall, scrotum and soft tissues.

Other dedicated applications are ultrasound for neonatal indications on the neonatal intensive care unit and ultrasound elastography for assessment hepatic stiffness in the setting of hepatitis and fibrosis.

A specialty of our ultrasound section is the use of ultrasound contrast agents for diagnosis and image guided procedures. Indication, technique and assessment of contrast enhanced exams for focal liver and kidney lesions are part of the curriculum.

By the end of this rotation, fellows should be capable of confidently scanning patients, interpreting complex pre- and postoperative B-mode, Doppler, contrast and elastography exams, consulting clinical teams and should know about the strengths and limitations of various ultrasound applications.

Image Guided Procedures at UWMC-Montlake

On this rotation fellows perform ultrasound and CT guided interventions under direct supervision of a selected pool of abdominal radiology attendings. During the rotation, fellows perform biopsies, aspirations and placements of metallic fiducial markers to the liver and lungs prior to surgery or radiation treatment. We emphasize the use of ultrasound as our first guidance tool wherever possible as this allows real time guidance and no radiation with maximum flexibility at bed site in the unit as well as in the procedure suite.

Goals of this rotation are to learn about the safety and feasibility of image guided procedures as every request goes through a standardized approval process, to learn about a variety of interventional techniques and devices, to improve scanning skills and hand-eye coordination with ultrasound-guided procedures and to proactively learn to apply low-dose CT and ultrasound-CT fusion and navigation techniques.

A library of dedicated publications on procedures we perform, consensus based policies and a quality assurance process to identify potentially discordant biopsy results ensure a standardized and safe approach to image guided procedures for our patients.

CT/MR/US at Harborview Medical Center (HMC)

In this 431-bed Level 1 trauma center, which is the largest trauma specialized and designated disaster control hospital in the region, all imaging modalities and image guided procedures are applied in one rotation. Fellows receive additional ultrasound training in abdominal, pelvic, obstetrical, thyroid, and scrotal ultrasound centered mainly on trauma and outpatients. HMC includes a large population from the International Clinic as well, where patients of diverse backgrounds are referred for sonographic liver tumor screening, prenatal care and other ambulatory indications. In addition, fellows gain experience in interpretation of contrast-enhanced ultrasound, abdominal CT and MR with an emphasis on trauma and indigent patients from high-risk populations. Fellows also perform image-guided biopsies of tumors and fine needle aspirations of fluid collections and abscesses. Multidisciplinary tumor boards are covered by fellows and attendings.

CT/MR/US at Fred Hutch Cancer Center

The Fred Hutch Cancer Center (Fred Hutch) is a National Cancer Institute designated cancer center that brings together the leading research teams and cancer specialists of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle Children’s Hospital, and UW Medicine including several Nobel laureates. This outpatient rotation offers extensive training with a high caseload of oncology imaging with CT, US and MR. Emphasis is on staging and treatment of cancer and learning appropriate radiologic workup of a variety of cancers. Fred Hutch clinics are actively involved in both cellular and non-cellular immunotherapy treatments, which offer the unique opportunity of learning imaging assessment and complications associated with these new therapies.

Fellows will have the opportunity to participate in multidisciplinary case management conferences for pancreas, colorectal and sarcoma patients at Fred Hutch.

CT/MR/US at Seattle VA Puget Sound Health Care System (VAPSHCS)

The VAPSHCS rotation offers instruction in abdominal and thoracic applications of advanced medical imaging as they apply to a variety of disease processes, including oncology, gastroenterology, hepatology, urology, and infectious and vascular diseases, among others. This includes experience in image-guided procedures within the chest, abdomen and pelvis. In addition, there are opportunities for fellows to participate in rehabilitation medicine and orthopedic/sports medicine disease care through interpretation of some musculoskeletal MR and CT studies.

Research and Educational Activities

Each fellow is required to participate in at least one abdominal imaging research project under the guidance of one of the section faculty members during the academic year. The section has a number of active research programs and a variety of research projects are available in basic science, clinical science, outcomes research, quality improvement and informatics. This project is expected to culminate in at least one scientific paper or educational paper in a peer-reviewed journal https://rad.washington.edu/about-us/academic-sections/body-imaging/recent-section-publications/ from “Peer-Reviewed Journal”.

However please note that this is a clinical fellowship and evaluations will focus on the six ACGME core clinical competencies of the rather than research. In addition, all fellows are expected to show teaching excellence by giving case conferences to radiology residents while on CT/MR rotations and by uploading teaching cases to our educational repository.

Protected time is provided on a weekly basis to accomplish these academic expectations.

 

A completed application for the Abdominal Radiology Fellowship of the Radiology Department at the University of Washington must include the following materials and/or documents:

Application:

Applications for the 2025-2026 program year may be submitted via email to fellowbi@uw.edu on November 1, 2023. Submission requirements are noted below.

SCARD Fellowship Embargo Guidelines for 2023-2024

  1. All interviews will be conducted virtually
    • Abdominal Radiology will conduct interviews via RezRate.
    • No on site visits will be available.
  2. Dates
    • November 1, 2023 – Application process opens
    • January 8, 2024 – First day of interviews
    • March 31, 2024 – Final day of interviews
  3. Offers can be made on the day of the interview but programs cannot send out more offers than they have spots to fill.
  4. Applicants have until Jan 15th to accept or decline any offer made before Jan 15th. For any
    offer made on or after Jan 15th the candidate has a 1 day grace period to accept or decline the
    offer.
  5. Exceptions to the embargo:
    • Applicants whose spouse/domestic partner is also applying for a medical fellowship in the same year
    • Internal candidates
    • Military candidates
    • International candidates – international candidates are defined as applicants from programs that are neither ACGME or RCPS programs (i.e. Canadian applicants are NOT excluded from the embargo.
    • Information is available at: SCARD

For US or Canadian graduates

  1. Completed Application Form
  2. Clinical Experience Questionnaire
  3. Current Curriculum Vitae (CV)
  4. A brief Personal Statement, addressing your interest in abdominal radiology and your career goals/plans (one page, name, date and signature)
  5. USMLE scores (Copies of results for Steps 1, 2-CK and 3), COMLEX scores or LMCC scores (Canadian)
  6. Medical School Diploma (official copy with notarized translation, if not in English)
  7. Three (3) Reference Letters, dated and signed on department letterhead:
  • One (1) from the director of your current residency/fellowship program
  • One (1) from a radiologist familiar with your work
  • One (1) from any physician that you worked with or have observed you professionally

References/Recommenders should write letters to the attention of:

Dr. Bahar Mansoori, Program Director

University of Washington Department of Radiology

Abdominal Radiology Fellowship

1959 NE Pacific Street, Box 357115

Seattle, WA 98195-7115

Letters may be sent separately to fellowbi@uw.edu.

 

For International graduates

  1. Completed Application Form
  2. Clinical Experience Questionnaire
  3. Current Curriculum Vitae (CV)
  4. A brief Personal Statement, addressing your interest in abdominal radiology and your career goals/plans (one page, name, date and signature)
  5. USMLE Scores (Copies of results for Steps 1, 2-CK and 3)
  6. Medical School Diploma (official copy with notarized translation, if not in English)
  7. ECFMG Certificate (For applicants with Medical Degrees issued outside the United States/Canada)
  8. Documentation of completion of your residency program
  9. Board Certification from your country of origin

References/Recommenders should write letters to the attention of:

Dr. Bahar Mansoori, Program Director

University of Washington Department of Radiology

Abdominal Radiology Fellowship

1959 NE Pacific Street, Box 357115

Seattle, WA 98195-7115

Letters may be sent separately to fellowbi@uw.edu.

 

Download application here:

Fellowship Application Form

Clinical Experience Questionnaire