Radiologists are specialist physicians who utilize a wide array of advanced techniques in medical imaging to diagnose and, in certain cases, treat patients with all types of illness. These imaging modalities include X-rays, ultrasound, CT, and MRI examinations. Like all physicians, radiologists have completed medical school and have obtained their MD degrees.
Radiologists correlate patient medical histories, physical exam findings, and laboratory values with their own interpretations of imaging exams to help patients and their primary care doctors arrive at the correct diagnosis in a timely fashion. A growing subset of these specialists called interventional radiologists performs surgical procedures under imaging guidance in order to minimize damage to healthy tissue. The training to become a radiologist is long, competitive, and intense, but the payoff of helping hundreds of patients every week makes the journey well worth it.
While early radiologists had only film radiographs (“X-rays”) to work with, modern professionals have a variety of tools at their disposal, including:
X-ray radiographyFluoroscopyUltrasoundComputerized tomography (CT)Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)Positron emission tomography (PET)Nuclear imaging
