Message from the Program Director
Welcome to Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital’s Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program. We are a community hospital-based training program specializing in preparing a resident for a comprehensive clinical practice in either a community setting or academic center. Our program’s rotation schedule allows for flexibility in tailoring the educational needs of our residents, while providing excellent diagnostic and hands-on interventional training.
The program’s goals and objectives are to provide experiential learning opportunities with graded responsibility throughout all four years of the radiology residency. Our residency is unique as it incorporates both hospital-based and outpatient radiology across a diverse patient population, providing a balanced experience in the residents’ learning. As the resident progresses throughout the residency, more independent learning opportunities are available, including indirect supervision of on-call duties which increases the competence and confidence of the trainee. Hands-on interventional radiology experience also adds to residents’ experience and portfolio as minor IR procedures are common job requirements of community practice radiologists.
The Diagnostic Radiology Residency Program at Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital (SBCH) is an advanced four-year, ACGME-accredited program (PGY-2 to PGY-5) after completion of a one-year ACGME-accredited internship. We are also an ACGME-approved program offering Early Specialization in Interventional Radiology (ESIR). Training takes place primarily at the Diagnostic Radiology Department at SBCH. The program also utilizes the nuclear medicine facilities of the Cancer Center of Santa Barbara with Sansum Clinic and ambulatory-care facilities of Sansum Clinic and Cottage Center for Advanced Imaging. Residents also rotate outside Santa Barbara to Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles (CHLA) for pediatric radiology and Los Angeles County + University of Southern California Medical Center (LAC+USC) for advanced cardiothoracic imaging. Due to the expansive nature of the practice of radiology, our program provides a balanced experience in both inpatient and outpatient radiology across a diverse patient population and large catchment area through our tertiary care referral center and outpatient facilities.
Ample research and teaching opportunities are available through the residency program. A unique research agreement with University of California, Santa Barbara allows the resident to become involved with ongoing translational medicine research projects with biomedical research teams. Cottage Health institutional seed grants are available on a competitive basis. Research projects are presented to the residents at a special annual resident research symposium. Residents are required to participate in at least one research project culminating in publication or presentation at a national/regional/local meeting. Medical students also rotate through the department of radiology from a formalized relationship with Keck-USC School of Medicine as an elective student. Externs from other medical schools throughout the United States also provide opportunities for resident teaching.
Our success as a training program is measured by our graduate placement in prestigious fellowship programs throughout California and across the rest of the United States. We also take pride in the successful career placement of our graduates in their desired geographic location beyond residency and fellowship. Our ABR board certification rate is 100% overall for the past 10 years. Our esteemed faculty consists of 15 fellowship-trained radiologists with many years of clinical and teaching experience in their chosen fields of expertise.
Our ability to attract the best and brightest medical students stems from our dedication to resident education, while treating our residents with respect and enabling an appropriate work-life balance. We organize numerous social events throughout the academic year, including an annual orientation outing, quarterly journal club dinner meetings, annual visiting grand rounds speaker, annual resident retreat to the Los Angeles Radiological Society Midwinter Meeting, and an end of the year graduation party.
Thank you for considering our radiology residency program. We hope that you enjoyed learning about our program and we look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Bernard Chow, MD, FACR
Program Director, Radiology Residency
Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital
Clinical Professor of Radiology,
Keck-USC School of Medicine
