C11: Radiology & Diagnostics

Whether the bone beneath a wound is infected changes everything that follows: the choice and duration of antibiotics, whether surgery is needed and the risk to the limb. Imaging is not a screening sweep. Each test answers a specific question at a specific time, and a scan moves the probability of disease rather than delivering a verdict, so the clinical picture comes first.

The module teaches the probe-to-bone test with inflammatory markers and a plain film as the first-line pair, MRI and how to read its marrow signal, the limits of MRI and where CT fits, and when white-cell SPECT/CT or FDG-PET/CT add specificity. It gives location and wound-relationship clues for separating Charcot from osteomyelitis and treats bone biopsy as the tie-breaker. C11 owns choosing and reading the scan; E04 covers the wider reasoning from any laboratory or imaging result to a decision.

Content is tiered at Foundation, Core and Advanced level, with a diagnostic algorithm, a modality comparison table and three case vignettes. You receive the Teaching Document, the Evidence Base, the slide deck and a narrated video.