Reviewer: Brad Pollard, MS, DABR (Austin Cancer Center)
Description: In a field where comprehensive study guides for board exams are severely lacking, this book does an excellent job of filling that void for the American Board of Radiology (ABR) and Medical Dosimetry Certification Board (MDCB) exams. It contains 13 chapters of questions and answers organized by topic, followed by a 14th chapter with three practice tests. Compared to other such study guides, this book has plenty of tables and graphics (many in vibrant color) to simulate a real exam.
Purpose: The book does not review material in any way - it is solely a book of questions and answers, generally accompanied by short explanations. It performs this task well, and does so over a broad scope of updated material.
Audience: The primary audience is dosimetry candidates taking the MDCB exam as well as medical physicists taking part I (and to a lesser extent part II) of the ABR exam. Those taking the ABR Part III exam should be able to answer all the questions in this book, and the anatomy portion may be useful while studying for the exam. Although I haven't taken ABR's maintenance of certification exam, I suspect that it would be useful for that purpose as well. For dosimetry exam takers, this book will most likely end up being the sentinel study resource. Where finding suitable questions and answers is at a premium, this book is essential for those taking part I of the ABR exam, and helpful for part II. Those taking part II will not find questions on such subjects as shielding, and the book does not delve into the intricacies of TG-51 that will be required knowledge for the exam. The author is a radiation therapist and a certified medical dosimetrist, and he has enlisted the assistance of many board-certified physicists and dosimetrists to develop the questions.
Features: The book does an admirable job of trying to cover a wide range of material. With so much to cover, it would be understandable if a MDCB exam candidate felt overwhelmed with some of the more difficult questions. As a result, the questions are organized into three different levels — level 1 questions are fundamental, questions at level 2 are more clinical and difficult in nature, and level 3 questions are the most advanced and the most helpful for ABR exam takers. Those taking the ABR exam should feel comfortable with all three levels, while those preparing for the MDCB exam who feel comfortable with the level 1 and 2 questions should feel confident heading into the exam. Approximately one-third of the questions are so called "K-type" questions, which the MDCB has historically used but has recently moved away from. Thus readers of this book will find the questions more challenging in nature than they will find during the exam (typical single-answer multiple choice). Exam topics such as radiation physics, dose calculation methods, treatment planning, quality assurance, and radiation safety, to name are a few, are covered in detail with many subsections of questions. There are two minor shortcomings. First, the answers do not appear directly after the questions. One must flip back through the pages to the end of the chapter to find the corresponding answers. Second, while the tables and figures are all labeled, they are not directly referenced to the corresponding question. Because of the formatting, in some areas of the book, it is not immediately apparent which figure/table applies to the question at hand. An additional minor shortcoming is that the three practice exams at the end of the book are primarily answers-only. Because of the sheer number of questions in this book, it is perhaps inevitable that there will be some mistakes, but the author does not list contact information or note any plans to produce future errata.
Assessment: Unlike for so many other board exams (law, medicine, etc.), practice questions and answers do not readily exist for these two exams, and certainly nowhere near the amount gathered here in one place. This book is sorely needed and is a commendable first step in providing valuable studying material. Those taking the MDCB exam who find they are in need of a review of some of the fundamentals, I would suggest Foundation of Radiological Physics, Saw (C.B. Saw Publishing, 2004), as a review that perhaps reads a bit easier and is a little more focused for MDCB candidates than Khan's The Physics of Radiation Therapy, 5th Edition, Khan and Gibbons (Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2014).
