Body MRI Fellowship

Overview

The Body MRI Division offers a dedicated one-year clinical fellowship designed to provide academically oriented graduates of radiology residency focused on advanced training in body magnetic resonance imaging across a wide range of diagnostic applications. By the end of the fellowship, trainees should have the skills and experience to develop a robust body MR clinical service at their future practice and perform translational research.

Structure of the Fellowship

The fellowship provides a year of intensive training in Body MRI for up to four fellows, with the fellowship encompassing clinical, technical, research, and educational experiences, as well as optional involvement in MR guided procedures.

  • Clinical: The fellows are responsible for running the clinical Body MR service, which includes multiple inpatient and outpatient clinical scanners (including a PET-MR), with primary responsibility for most Body MRI protocols, image acquisition oversight, safety, complex case scanning, and initial interpretations. These clinical responsibilities are performed in conjunction with a dedicated Body MR division attending, allowing for continual instruction and guidance throughout the clinical experience.
  • Technical: Body MR technical education is accomplished through small group training directly on the magnets, weekly fellow conferences, fellow involvement with complex case scanning, and frequent opportunities to work directly with MR technologists.
  • Research: There are outstanding opportunities for research, with close ties to leading MR engineers and physicists at the Lucas Center for Imaging. At least 20% dedicated research time is included in the fellowship. Most fellows are able to submit a conference abstract and if accepted are supported to attend the related conference (most commonly the annual ISMRM meeting).
  • Education: In additional to education during readout, there are body MR case review sessions (weekly), body US/CT/MR case conferences (2-3 per week), optional body division evening lectures, an annual CME conference that fellows attend, and additional educational opportunities. The Body MR fellows also have a strong educational presence in the Department, with responsibility for organizing clinical MR conferences for the Residency Program and presenting at interdisciplinary clinical conferences.
  • Procedures: Fellows can at their own option experience and be trained in various MR-guided procedures. The body MR division handles most MR-guided procedures done in the department. Commonly performed procedures include focal prostate cancer therapies (e.g. cryoablation, transrectal HIFU, TULSA), MR guided biopsies (most commonly liver and prostate), MR central and peripheral lymphangiograms, neuro HIFU for essential tremor, desmoid tumor cryoablations, and palliative HIFU for bone metastases.
  • Other: Elective requests are handled based on the fellow’s educational needs, with fellows commonly receiving 4 or more weeks of dedicated time on services complementary to their educational goals such as MSK, breast, cardiovascular, pediatric, fetal, and body US imaging, as well as interventional radiology. Body MR fellows also participate in coverage of evening emergency department and inpatient Body MR/CT/US imaging.

SCIT Fellowship: For those who want a more extended and research focused two-year fellowship, we also are able to blend the body MRI fellowship clinical experience into the two-year SCIT Fellowship. The SCIT fellowship’s mission is to train the next generation of researchers in the development and clinical translation of advanced techniques for cancer imaging. Please see the SCIT webpage for additional information: https://med.stanford.edu/scitprogram.html

Equipment

  • Two GE Signa 1.5T MRI scanners (all clinical)
  • Nine outpatient and six inpatient GE 3T MRI scanners
  • One PET-MR clinical scanner
  • One PET-MR research scanner
  • One GE 7T research scanner
  • Two GE 3T research scanners
  • One research hyperpolarizer
  • One Siemens 3T
  • One Philips 3T
  • One 1.5T GE, four 3T GE pediatric MR scanners
  • One GE pediatric PET-MR scanner

Clinical MRI Volume: Approximately 350 body MR diagnostic cases per week. Several MR-guided procedures per week are also available that fellows have the option to take part in.

Goals of the Fellowship

  1. Provide advanced protocoling, troubleshooting and interpreting skills in MRI of the body
  2. Provide background and understanding of MR principles sufficient to manage an MR service, make MR equipment decisions, and execute research projects.
  3. Participate in faculty tumor boards and experience educating residents
  4. Conduct cutting edge research and present at international MR conferences

Evaluation and Supervision All imaging studies are interpreted with an attending radiologist who supervises the fellow at readouts. In addition, each fellow’s progress is reviewed on a quarterly basis.

Accreditation The Clinical Fellowship in the Body MRI Division is not an ACGME-accredited fellowship in the US, and we are not aware of any upcoming plans by the ACGME to accredit it.

To apply,  upload  at the bottom of this page the following documents:

  1. Personal statement (pdf)
  2. Completed application form (pdf)
  3. CV (pdf)
  4. Copy of medical school diploma (pdf)
  5. Medical school transcript (pdf)
  6. Copy of undergraduate diploma (pdf)
  7. Undergraduate transcript (pdf)
  8. USMLES steps 1-3 (pdf)
  9. An optional photograph; we have found it helpful to the selection committee due to the lapse in time between interviews and final selection.

Additionally, please submit three letters of recommendation, one of which should be from either the chairperson of your present department or the director of your residency program, and two from additional faculty members in your department. Letters may be sent via email loening@stanford.edu and​ leschan1@stanford.edu or mailed to:

Andreas Loening
Department of Radiology
Stanford University, School of Medicine
1201 Welch Road, Rm P287, Lucas Center
Stanford, CA 94305-5102

Applications will be considered starting approximately 19 months prior to the start of the fellowship. We are following SCARD guidelines, and will begin accepting applications for the fellowship year 2025-2026 starting on November 1st 2023. You will be contacted if selected for an interview. For the fellowship year 2025-2026, interviews will start on January 8th 2024.

Download Application

Fellowship Application


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