Radiology

Welcome to the Wikiversity Department of Radiology, part of the School of Medicine.

The Department of Radiology is a Wikiversity content development project. Wikiversity editors with an interest in radiology can use this page to plan, organize and develop learning resources for learning about radiology. All actual learning resources should go in the main namespace (use page names with no prefix).

Introduction
Diagnostic Radiology is the use of modalities such as MRI, CT, ultrasound, plain films, nuclear medicine techniques to image the human body to diagnose disease or to follow the progress of disease already being treated.

MRI uses radiowaves and magnetic fields for excellent soft tissue detail. It is used heavily in Neuroradiology and Musculoskeletal imaging.

CT and xrays both use high frequency low wavelenght xrays. Bony detail is excellent though soft tissue detail is limited.

Ultrasound uses sound waves.

Nuclear medicine uses radioactive tracers and particles and depicts many physiologic processes.

A separate branch, interventional radiology, uses diagnostic techniques such as fluoroscopy, CT, ultrasound, and in the future, MRI, to guide the placement of needles, catheters and wires inside the human body for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.

In the future, many newer techiniques, such as a functional MRI, interventional MRI, MRI/PET fusion, and molecular and genetic imaging will become routine.

Interventional procedures in the future will eventually minimize the use of xrays, which have potential effects to damage DNA, and rely more heavily on other techniques which will not use ioninzing radiation. Such techniques will include interventional MRI and MRI fluroscopy.

Radiologists will also be able to use small molecular probes in the future to diagnose specific genetic abnormalities, both for diagnostic purposes so treatment can be tailored individually, and for individually tailored gene therapy.

Learning Projects
See: Learning Projects and the Learning model.

Learning materials and learning projects are located in the main Wikiversity namespace. Simply make a link to the name of the learning project (learning projects are independent pages in the main namespace) and start writing! We suggest the use of the learning project template (use "subst:Learning project boilerplate" on the new page, inside the double curved brackets – ).

Learning materials and learning projects can be used by multiple departments. Cooperate with other departments that use the same learning resource.

Remember, Wikiversity has adopted the "learning by doing" model for education. Lessons should center on learning activities for Wikiversity participants. We learn by doing.

Select a descriptive name for each learning project. Learning projects can be listed in alphanumeric order by code, however code numbers are optional.