Certificate requirements

Please see below all requirements to receive a University of Toronto Diagnostic Radiology Fellowship certificate. Please note the following instructions:

- Send all requirements in one email to Sarah Bakhit at mi.fellowships@utoronto.ca at least 2-3 weeks before fellowship end date to process approvals, i.e. if you’re ending on June 30, 2025, please submit by Monday, June 2, 2025. If there are any delays, we cannot guarantee certificate will be ready end of June. If your fellowship end date is beyond June 30, 2025, then the June 2, 2025 deadline do not apply to you - please submit requirements 2-3 weeks prior to fellowship end date.

- Follow the manuscript and log-book templates provided - sample log and summary sheet for diagnostic studies.

- If continuing in the same program, i.e. Abdominal for another academic year (regardless of site), the PGME office will print one certificate at the end of second year.

- Medical Imaging does not provide certificates for fellowships that are 6-month or less in duration.

1. Academic Project:

The Department of Medical Imaging considers scholarly projects (research, educational or Quality Initiative projects) to be an integral component of the fellowship experience. Protected academic time is therefore made available to all fellows. Your scholarly activity should be planned in consultation with your subspecialty fellowship supervisors and project supervisors. Please keep in mind that all time allocated for academic purposes must be spent on academic endeavors and should not be used for any other activity.

Research Manuscript

All fellows must have at least one FIRST AUTHOR original manuscript per year of fellowship ready for submission to a peer-reviewed journal (arising from work done in the University of Toronto, Department of Medical Imaging) per year.
Indicate your manuscript supervisor's name and email address and follow the template provided Manuscript template.pdf.
Name your pdf file: LAST NAME-MANUSCRIPT SHORT TITLE-ACADEMIC YEAR.pdf
PLEASE NOTE THAT CASE REPORTS, REVIEW ARTICLES, AND PICTORIAL REVIEWS DO NOT SATISFY THIS REQUIREMENT. It should be a research manuscript.

If at least one FIRST AUTHOR manuscript per year of fellowship is not submitted, no fellowship certificate will be provided, and any licensing bodies that enquire will be told that the fellowship was not completed. We will be unable to verify or confirm fellowship completion requests.

Educational projects

Submit a description of the educational project and any educational software (e.g. articulate files) related to the project. If interested, please contact Dr. Eric Bartlett at eric.bartlett@uhn.ca

Quality initiative (QI) project - https://medical-imaging.utoronto.ca/cpi-resources

As of the 2022-2023 academic year, fellows can do a quality initiative (QI) project as an alternative to an original research project part of their academic project to be completed during protected academic time. The fellow/QI project should:

State clear deliverables (areas of improvement) that will drive the project.
Demonstrate that the proposed change has occurred.
Go through the QI approval in your hospitals, like the REB approval for a research project.
Submit a first author manuscript describing the background, rationale, methodology, results and discussion, including the successful implementation of the project. A template will be provided shortly.
Obtain supervisor’s approval.

Opportunity to learn about how to conduct a QI project is offered to fellows of our Department on a registration basis through the CQUIPS Co-Learning program. This is a teaching program on basic fundaments to the successful execution of a QI initiative. Example of parts of a QI project: choosing a QI project focus, aim statements, QI measures, process tools, mapping solutions to problems that account for local context, stakeholder engagement, rapid cycle change (i.e. PDSA), and run charts.

Details about the registration process for the CQUIPS should be sent off through the general email to our Department (RADSTAFF) soon.

If interested in QI project, please directly contact Dr. Andrea Doria at andrea.doria@sickkids.ca.

Research/QI/educational manuscript has to be signed off by your research/QI/educational supervisor as satisfactory, failing which the certificate will be withheld.

2. Procedure and Academic logs:

Procedure log

Log should give details of all procedures done throughout the year (Date, Procedure, Extent of Participation – Primary/assistant/observer, most responsible physician) and should include a summary sheet giving totals for each procedure type.
Spreadsheets, databases or manual log are acceptable.
For fellowships that involve reading out many diagnostic studies, a summary sheet giving totals of types of studies read should suffice. This can be easily obtained from the Radiology Information Systems in your hospital.
For diagnostic studies, you may wish to give more details of certain specific studies which may be of interest to you. Here is a sample log and summary sheet for diagnostic studies. The log can be tailored to your program.

Academic log

Log should list all formal academic activity that you undertake during your fellowship
Include formal presentations at rounds, scientific meetings (no mandatory number).
Exclude attendance at rounds, meetings, and conferences.
Include all research projects you initiate during the year, indicating status of each project (e.g., published, in press, in progress, etc.).

For projects in progress, please provide an estimate of completion.

3. Patient confidentiality and Privacy:

Patient confidentiality & privacy is extremely important and is mandated by law.

Do not identify patients with names, hospital numbers or date of birth in your log sheets.
Do not discuss patient information in public areas (like elevators, corridors, hospital cafeterias).
Do not access health information for reasons other than patient care or approved research / academic work – it is illegal.
Do not post patient information or images on social media even if anonymized.
It is your professional responsibility to be very familiar with privacy policy of the hospital site that you are working.

4. POWER evaluations:

Evaluations will be requested at 2, 6 and 11 months (i.e. end of August 2024, end of December 2024 and in May 2025) unless otherwise stated. All evaluations are mandatory. If you do not receive notice to complete an evaluation in August, December and/or May, please reach out to Sarah Bakhit asap at mi.fellowships@utoronto.ca.

5. Call and Night Shifts:

Call is an integral part of the fellowship. In-house call should in general be no more than 1 in 4. Home call with in house read outs on weekend days and statutory holidays should in general be no more than 1 in 3. Some fellowships have fellows take night shifts in lieu of a day shift.

6. PGME Registration Requirements:

No certificate will be released to any fellow with any item/fee outstanding from PGME. Please check your POWER Registration to follow up on the outstanding items such as immunization records, CPSO or registration fee, modules, employment visa, VSS, etc.

Note: PGME prints one certificate per program completed, regardless of site.

Please see link below to PGME's certificate policies and guidelines:

https://pgme.utoronto.ca/current-trainees/completing-your-training/obtain-your-training-certificate/