Diagnostic radiology residency

The Corewell Health – Grand Rapids/Michigan State University Diagnostic Radiology Residency offers a robust training experience with a case volume to trainee ratio among the top in the nation. This includes cases of rare diseases and post-transplant studies.

We are fully accredited by the ACGME and have received ESIR (Early Specialization in Interventional Radiology) designation. The program is four years long, plus an integrated Transitional Year. We accept three residents each year.

Welcome to the Corewell Health – Grand Rapids/Michigan State University Diagnostic Radiology Residency program. We appreciate your interest in learning about us.

Our program benefits from a combination of academic affiliation with Michigan State University College of Human Medicine and education through two different private practice radiology groups, Advanced Radiology Services and Kent Radiology. This relationship allows us to offer all of the advantages of a large medical school, including research opportunities and educational support, with the freedoms that community-based clinical programs can provide without the constraints of a traditional hierarchical academic structure. Our residents remain the primary focus of our educational efforts, and our faculty are well-supported in their teaching endeavors by their respective private practice groups. Faculty-to-resident teaching ratio and potential case volumes are incredibly favorable. Board pass rates remain above the national average, and our residents go on to obtain fellowships at many excellent institutions and programs upon their completion of residency.

The two private practice experiences also offer opportunities to interface with different groups and styles of practice. Advanced Radiology Services (ARS) is a much larger group with over 150 board-certified radiologists, the largest group of subspecialized radiologists in the state of Michigan. Subspecialty-trained radiologists work with residents in all clinical sections. ARS radiologists staff the resident rotations at Corewell Health West, including those at the Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital. With more than 10 hospitals in the health system and dozens of ambulatory sites, the case volume easily exceeds 1 million studies annually.

Residents also work with Trinity Health Saint Mary's board-certified radiologists (Kent Radiology) in a more typical private practice setting. Mercy Health Saint Mary’s is a non-profit 300-bed acute care teaching hospital. Trinity Health Saint Mary’s is the West Michigan Renal Transplant Center and provides residents with exposure to a variety of renal failure-related radiological studies. They also opened the region’s first diagnostic Breast Center in 1983, which is the site where residents complete most of their mammography rotations. The Lacks Cancer Center at Trinity Health Saint Mary’s is a comprehensive, dedicated cancer hospital.

Lastly, beyond the typical radiology training, our residents select a non-interpretive track at the end of their R1 year to supplement their clinical education. Those tracks include research, clinical education, artificial intelligence/informatics, quality improvement, advocacy, leadership, and business/entrepreneurship. The non-interpretive track consists of one-on-one faculty mentorship and a capstone project to be presented in the R4 year. Faculty leadership time is dedicated toward these tracks and other scholarly activities to aid in resident involvement.

Here at the Corewell Health – Grand Rapids/Michigan State University Diagnostic Radiology Residency program, we are committed to helping you become one of the best radiologists in the world and are looking forward to meeting you when you come visit us in beautiful Grand Rapids, MI!

Michael Perone, MD
Program Director, Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program

The Corewell Health – Grand Rapids/Michigan State University Diagnostic Radiology Residency offers a robust training experience with a case volume being among the top in the nation, including cases in rare diseases and post-transplant studies.

Mission statement

Educate residents to excel as patient-centered, critically thinking radiologists who work to improve the health of their community.

Program aims

1. Increasing the consistency and quality of the didactic lectures and curriculum
2. Increasing the residents' review of current literature through a focused program of journal review with the program director
3. Increasing the number of cases each resident sees during their residency
4. Improving communication and accountability between the residency program and the faculty who are employed by a large private practice group

Training Locations

Residents train at Corewell Health Grand Rapids Hospitals and at Trinity Health Saint Mary’s. Corewell Health Grand Rapids Hospitals, located in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, include Blodgett Hospital, Butterworth Hospital, Fred and Lena Meijer Heart Center, Helen DeVos Children's Hospital and Lemmen-Holton Cancer Pavilion.

Butterworth Hospital is a 679-bed non-profit acute care teaching hospital. It serves as a Level I Trauma Center that provides radiology residents with the majority of their emergency radiology exposure as well as the High-Risk OB Referral Center for West Michigan. It houses the West Michigan Regional Burn Center. In addition to cardiac transplantation, Corewell Health in West Michigan has also been recently approved for lung transplants. On average, 350,000 studies are performed per year.

Helen DeVos Children’s Hospital houses the pediatric radiology department and is the only free-standing children’s hospital in West Michigan with a Level 1 pediatric trauma center. The Corewell Health Cancer Center at Lemmen-Holton Cancer Pavilion received the American College of Radiology’s Breast Imaging Center of Excellence Award and is where residents complete rotations in PET.

Corewell Health Blodgett Hospital is a 410-bed non-profit acute care teaching hospital with an active medical staff of 240 physicians in East Grand Rapids, Michigan. It houses an Arthritis Institute, which focuses on reconstructive surgery. Residents complete most of their fluoroscopy here, where there is a substantial bariatric surgery population. The Blodgett Hospital Diagnostic Radiology department performs an excess of 35,000 diagnostic exams per year, including CT and MRI scanning, nuclear medicine with Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) camera, angiography, and ultrasound.

Trinity Health Saint Mary’s is a non-profit 300-bed acute care teaching hospital, has more than 200 attending physicians on the active staff. Trinity Health Saint Mary's board-certified radiologists provide resident training in interventional radiology/angiography, CT and MRI scanning, nuclear medicine, mammography, ultrasound and general radiology. Trinity Health Saint Mary’s is the West Michigan Renal Transplant Center and provides residents with exposure to a variety of renal failure-related radiological studies. They also opened the region’s first diagnostic Breast Center in 1983, which is the site where residents complete most of their mammography rotations. The Lacks Cancer Center at Trinity Health Saint Mary’s is a comprehensive, dedicated cancer hospital.

Radiology residents are exposed to state-of-the-art equipment, including:

Our diagnostic radiology residency program has a long-standing testimony to our commitment to academic excellence and achievement from our current residents and our graduates. We are fully accredited by the ACGME and have received ESIR (Early Specialization in Interventional Radiology) designation. Robust training experience with a case volume being among the top in the state, including cases in rare diseases and post-transplant studies.

Graduates have completed fellowships at some of the best institutions in the country, including Massachusetts General Hospital, Johns Hopkins, Mallinkrodt, Mayo Clinic, and Stanford University.

Conferences

Conferences are held throughout the academic year, with an average of eight hours of conferences per week. The core curriculum includes: physics, didactic subspecialty lectures and interactive case conferences. The core curriculum for each section covers all aspects of diagnostic and interventional radiology, repeated twice over the resident’s four years. Daily didactic lectures and/or interactive conferences are provided. Dedicated physics lectures are provided by department physicists and offers the necessary foundation to understand the underlying imaging science for each diagnostic modality and prepare residents for the physics, regulatory and quality questions they will encounter for their certifying exam and in practice. Our medical physics faculty also teaches a curriculum which incorporates NRC requirements so that all residents qualify for authorized user status (see the American Board of Radiology’s website for details regarding NRC authorized user status). There are many opportunities to attend lectures and visiting professor series. In addition to clinical radiology and physics lectures, dedicated lectures or course series are provided in: the radiology report, business concepts, quality and patient safety and ethics as they pertain to the practice of radiology. A resident-run book club is held weekly to provide introduction to the fundamentals of diagnostic radiology to freshman residents. Visiting professors are provided one to two times per month, on average, who are nationally and internationally recognized in their area of expertise. Their lectures are typically followed by three to four hours of case conference.

Additionally, residents are encouraged to attend and participate in a variety of divisional, departmental and interdepartmental conferences in conjunction with their clinical counterparts, including various specialty tumor boards. Senior residents have the potential to present at these conferences further preparing them for the rigors of fellowship. Journal Club is held monthly with faculty member facilitator to discuss interesting articles on a topic of the residents’ interest. Residents also have a resident run interdisciplinary conference where they teach other clinical residents the pathophysiology relating to their patients, normal/abnormal anatomy, and what are the appropriate imaging tests.

Meetings and courses

All diagnostic radiology residents attend the 4-week radiologic pathology course at the American Institute for Radiologic Pathology (AIRP) in Silver Spring, MD during their PGY-4 year in which registration and up to $3,000 in expenses are paid for by the program.

Additional funds are provided during the resident’s third year to specifically be used for a radiology review course for the ABR Core Exam.

Rotations

A dedicated didactic-based curriculum to prepare PGY2 residents for night float runs for six months prior to the resident beginning night float.

Teaching opportunities

In keeping with the tradition of physician as teacher, residents have many opportunities to teach their colleagues, medical students and patients. The radiology residents teach Michigan State University and other visiting medical students the pertinent radiographic and CT findings (normal and abnormal) anatomy during their first year. In addition, the residents participate in resident-run interdisciplinary conferences in which they teach the clinical residents their patient’s pathological imaging findings.

During residency at Corewell Health in West Michigan, there are ample research opportunities. Our close affiliation with the Michigan State University College of Human Medicine allows us to take advantages of the many resources. Our high volume lends itself for abundant opportunities for case reports and/or case series studies. Alternately, those who are more academically orientated may join with one of our faculty, many of which have nationally published articles. Residents are provided with two weeks elective time per year during their third and fourth years. The scholarly activity support team provides resources to residents and faculty in all areas of research and scholarly activity.

Residents present their research at major national meetings including RSNA, ARRS, ASNR, and AUR. Residents are also encouraged to present their work at subspecialty meetings. Our program provides financial support for residents to attend any meeting at which the resident is the primary presenter of an oral presentation or educational exhibit.

The scholarly activity support team provides support to Corewell Health - Grand Rapids/Michigan State University residents and faculty in all areas of research and scholarly activity (e.g., quality, educational, surveys). To access more details, including templates (e.g., study protocol, poster), help request forms and other contact information, visit the Scholarly Activity Support website.

Our program accepts applications through the Electronic Residency Application Service (ERAS). This service is provided to medical students during their senior year by their medical school. We begin accepting applications on September 15 each year and our deadline for completed applications is December 1. See our eligibility requirements.

Application requirements:

• Three letters of recommendation, preferably at least one from a radiologist
• Personal statement
• Medical school transcript
• Dean’s letter
• USMLE Step 1 Score Required (even if you are an osteopathic medical student)
• USMLE Step 2 CK Score Preferred

Our program received continued accreditation on January 24, 2024 from the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Our next self-study date is scheduled for June 21, 2024. For more information on our program, contact the program coordinator.

All visiting medical student applications must be submitted through the Visiting Student Learning Opportunities program (formerly known as VSAS). For more information on visiting medical student opportunities, please visit our Visiting Learner page.

Corewell Health in West Michigan provides a comprehensive and very competitive benefits package for our residents, staff and their families. In addition, our program provides educational monies to support your ongoing education. Download our salary and benefits document to learn more.

Many of our alumni have moved on to subspecialty fellowship training, see where they've gone!