APCA awards the Registered Physician in Vascular Interpretation (RPVI) credential to qualified physicians who pass the Physicians’ Vascular Interpretation (PVI) examination. To be eligible to take the PVI exam, you must first meet specific educational and professional experience requirements that the APCA outlines on its website (APCA.org) and in its PVI Prerequisite Information Guide. Physicians who take the PVI examination have four hours to answer 185 multiple-choice questions. Click here to go to the APCA's website for more information on the RPVI exam.

To prepare for physics-related questions on the exam, we strongly recommend Ultrasound Physics CD-ROM Mock Exam: SPI Edition. If you need to strengthen your understanding of the basic principles and instrumentation of ultrasound, you should also have a standard ultrasound physics text—Kremkau’s Sonography Principles and Instruments 9th edition.

For the remainder of the RPVI examination our first and strongest recommendation is the new full-color 5th edition of Vascular Technology: An Illustrated Review, which covers protocols for and interpretation of all vascular exams and lab tests—both imaging and non imaging—as well as their indications, contraindications, physical principles (including Doppler), and technical performance issues that can affect interpretation. This book is approved for 15 hours' CME credit acceptable to APCA, thereby satisfying the CME requirement to sit for the exam. We also recommend the Vascular Technology CD-ROM Mock Exam.

These three products—Vascular Technology: An Illustrated Review 5th edition, Vascular Technology CD-ROM Mock Exam, and Ultrasound Physics CD-ROM Mock Exam: SPI Edition cover what you need to know to ensure your best performance on the PVI exam. In addition, our products are designed to work together. Each follows and covers in its own step-specific manner the material on the APCA exam outlines, and each is cross-referenced to the other. So by design you have exactly what you need, including the means to assess your strengths and weaknesses and then to follow up with further study. There is no need to overwhelm yourself with dozens of books and articles that are not specifically designed to prepare you for these important examinations. Everything is here.