The Canadian health care system: past, present, and future.

This review offers American radiologists the information required to understand the Canadian health care system. It includes a brief history of the Canadian system and describes the relationship between health care and the Canadian constitution. A comprehensive appraisal of current conditions addresses the performance of the Canadian system and provides an overview of policy and planning responsibilities for health care across Canada.

In-training evaluation using hand-held computerized clinical work sampling strategies in radiology residency.

Purpose: The in-training evaluation and final in-training evaluation are the mainstay format for evaluation summaries in Canadian residency training programs. This study investigates the feasibility of a clinical work sampling (CWS) approach to evaluation in radiology residency, with the aid of personal hand-held computing devices

Methods: This study was conducted over a 1-year period with 14 radiology residents spanning 4 postgraduate years. Residents were provided with a hand-held device to enter evaluation data, with entries assessing 9 categories of resident performance.

A web-based test of residents' skills in diagnostic radiology.

Purpose: To develop an objective, Web-based tool for evaluating residents' knowledge of diagnostic radiology.

Methods: We developed and tested a Web-based evaluation tool (the Diagnostic Radiology Skills Test) that consists of 3 tests, one in each of 3 domains of diagnostic radiology: chest, gastrointestinal, and musculoskeletal imaging. Each test comprises 30 cases representing a range of difficulty in the domain, including normal states, normal variants, typical cases of common diagnoses, and cases with more subtle findings.