GENERAL Surgery

During this block, you will learn about the imaging relevant to general surgery - principally abdominal, vascular and breast imaging. Many of the concepts taught in the abdominal imaging material also apply to your gastroenterology studies in the Medicine block.

At the start of the block, watch these videos, and take a look at the links to further reading listed below.

Next, look at the quiz cases and make a note of your answers. During your block, there will a review session conducted on Microsoft Teams to go over these quiz cases, and any questions you have. 

LEARNING VIDEOS

These two videos have been recorded by Dr Vikas Shah, covering an approach to abdominal x-rays, and an introduction to abdominal CT.

The video on vascular imaging has been recorded by Dr Yiewfah Fong, and the video on breast imaging by Dr Reena Aggarwal.

OPTIONAL: For additional information about interventional radiology, you can watch the recordings of three webinars conducted by the British Society of Interventional Radiology, aimed at medical students and junior doctors.

QUIZ CASES AND INTERACTIVE REVIEW SESSION

After watching the videos above, please take a look at these quiz cases

Make a note of your findings and answers, and we will go through them in a scheduled Teams session (the specific dates and times will be sent to you by the block administrators). The Teams session will be interactive, so please also have this polling page open in your web browser. 

FURTHER RESOURCES

All of these links are freely accessible and easily digestible and will complement the material in the videos.


Overview of abdominal imaging for medical students


Abdominal x-rays:

ABDO X system for analysing abdominal x-rays 

Pneumoperitoneum

Rigler sign

Bowel obstruction

Thumbprinting

Urolithiasis


Abdominal CT:

Summary of abdominal CT for medical students (at the bottom of this article, in the “snippet”, you will find links to key findings, conditions and presentations relevant to medical students, for example, acute cholecystitis

Intravenous contrast and enteric contrast for CT abdomen and pelvis

Labelled and annotated anatomy on a CT abdomen and pelvis


Vascular imaging:

Abdominal aortic aneurysms

Peripheral arterial disease

Investigating limb ischaemia


Breast imaging:

Mammography

Breast ultrasound

Breast cancer


You can also download this free iBook on cross-sectional imaging for medical students.