Will You Be Crowned Champion? Reserve Your Seat For The 2023 Roentgen Competition!
Book your spot for the 2023 Roentgen Competition. Deadline is the 17th of July.
Yes fellow RadCasters. It’s that time of the year again. The international Roentgen competition is back.
For those of you not aware of what the Roentgen competition is, let us fill you in with the deets quick style ya feel me. Remember those boring anatomy spotter exams you did in medical school? The ones where some sadistic surgeon would go around putting pins in the most obscure anatomical structures and then menacingly laugh when the poor students didn’t have the faintest idea of what it was?
We do and yes, we have PTSD from it (never mention the brachial plexus in front of Uzoma). But you see, when we reflected on those experiences during our monthly ‘Anatomy Spotter Anonymous’ meetings, we really questioned the whole point of these type of assessments. Like what patient comes in and goes ‘yes doctor, I’ve nicely placed a pin in the exact place it hurts’. Life just doesn’t work like that (unless you have a thing for putting pins in yourself). Plus, if you’re not surgically inclined with dreams of making those juicy, precious incisions, then you’re not going to get much exposure to dissection based anatomy. So that got us scratching our heads at RadCast HQ. Could we build on this ‘spotter’ type of teaching and obviously, we thought the answer was yes.
In a nutshell, instead of cadaveric/gross/dissection based anatomy, why not look at it from a radiology perspective? After all, you’ll probably spend a fair bit of time in your clinical career looking at scans, scratching your head and trying to play ‘spot the consolidation’ on a CXR. So, wouldn’t it make more sense to find a way to help increase your knowledge of radiology anatomy? And how could we make it fun? Cue the Roentgen competition.
Aptly named after Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, the absolute G who discovered X-rays, the Roentgen competition is a radiology anatomy spotter exam. Over the course of 60 minutes, you’ll be faced with 50 radiology anatomy images. Now, you could be asked to simply name the structure indicated on the image or if we’re being really mean, we could ask you to name a structure related to it e.g. name the nerve that passes through the foramen. In terms of what radiology modalities will be included, it’ll be a mix of the ones commonly encountered in everyday clinical practice e.g. X-rays, CT, MRI etc.
Before you think “holy sh…” and think this is beyond your competencies, we want you to take a moment to breath. We aren’t setting this competition at the level expected for radiology trainees (residents if you’re feeling boujee). Seriously, this isn’t at the level of the FRCR Part 1 Anatomy exam (ain’t nobody got time for that). That would just be mean and we’re actually softies at heart. Rather, we’ve tailored the questions based on the radiology anatomy you should know as a final year medical student and also, the common radiology anatomy that catches out junior doctors early on in their medical careers i.e. gets mistaken for being abnormal when it’s actually a normal anatomical variant (we’re looking at you ossicles).
So how do you enroll? Well, now that we’ve tickled your interest, the answer is really simple. Just click on the button below, make sure you’re eligible (basically no current or incoming radiology trainees) and pay the registration fee for the competition. Registration fee?! We know, we know. But hear us out. When we ran the competition for the first time back in 2022, the proctoring (invigilation) we had in place could have been better. You see, we have plans to scale this competition every year and to do that, we need to make the whole process more robust. One part of that includes proctoring and this year, we’ve invested in high level proctoring software to make sure nobody can ‘exploit’ the system. As a result of this, there is a fee associated with registering for the competition.
After you’ve registered, we’ll be in touch to get some more information from you and all that’s next is for you to get ready for the competition which will be held virtually on the 24th of July 2023 at 10am to 12pm (GMT+1). In terms of prep for the competition, we’ve provided our suggested ‘reading’ material which you can find on the competition website (click on the button below).
Finally, you may be thinking. What’s in it for me? Well, not only will the Roentgen champion get certification of their international achievement (bragging rights) but as is the RadCast way, we’ve sweetened the deal with a monetary prize too. With that all being said, make sure to reserve your seat for the Roentgen competition. The deadline for enrollments is the 17th of July (23:59 GMT+1) and to ensure the experience on the day isn’t compromised, we do have a fixed number of seats available. Once we reach that limit, we’ll be closing enrollments. As always, if you have any questions then please feel free to reach out to us via hello@radcast.co.uk.
So, to all of those who register for the competition, we wish you good luck. May the odds be ever in your favour. To the victor, the spoils. To the champion, the Roentgen crown. There can only be one. Will that be you?
Au revoir,
From your “Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen, the absolute G” friends,
Jamie, Uzoma and Muhammad
RadCast Co-Founders