FRCR Part 1 Books

Physics

All that existed when I did the exam was this terrible book:-

This was a terrible read! I hate hate hate this book!

I hear that since my time there have been a few brave souls that have written up physics notes and published them. I do not think it will be hard to beat this book but on the off chance you want to go the source of all evil (physics) then please go ahead and buy this book...enjoy

The other book I would highly recommend is MRI Made Easy (which is out of print...but being a radiologist makes you pretty resourceful right?...I am sure you'll find a way):

MRI Made Easy

This book had really funny explanations and illustrations. Stuff like...picture a rabbit running around a track...now picture a turtle running around the same track...etc etc. For me and the way my mind works this was amazing if not a little unhinged.

For the questions  I would just get any FRCR physics question book under the sun and do them again and again whilst dreaming about the day you will never have to do physics ever again -which is soon I hope 🙂

Anatomy

 At first someone told me to get Weir & Abrahams' Imaging Atlas of Human Anatomy and to do the anatomy by covering the key and then trying to name the markers. In truth it wasn't very useful at all. It equates to rope learning and that is very difficult.
Just in case you get tempted to buy it here a picture of it!
 In the the end I found doing the dedicated anatomy question books over and over and most of all making sure I read the explanations. The explanations were key as it would talk about relevant anatomy in close proximity to the labelled area and associations with other bits of anatomy. I found that very useful. The trick will be to be eventually be able to identify anatomy on imaging modalities for non dedicated scans. For example, the IVC on the spinal MRI. That is what radiology thug life is like. A lot of the time you spot something on the edge of the study that is not what the scan was about. Then you have to relate the anatomy to what you know is there and then decide on what your incidental finding is.
The following are good examples:
I would not recommend Get Through First FRCR: Questions for the Anatomy Module. I did not find this a very representative book at all. Just in case you want to know what it looks like:

My final word on this...Part 1 is a tough exam. If you find yourself in a situation that you can only really go for one and pass one...get the physics done. The anatomy in part will come with time on the job.

If you are doing both, try to be sure to not let the anatomy slip on the side line. I did that and so did a few colleagues 🙁

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