Who is better at reading a knee mri? radiologist or orthopedic surgeon

Depends: Sometimes the radiologist and sometimes the orthopedic surgeon. Your best bet is to have the MRI interpreted by a radiologist trained in musculoskeletal imaging and those images correlated by the examination (and secondary image review) of an experienced orthopedic surgeon. In that setting you get the best of both specialties.

Funny: Being an orthopedic surgeon i'd say we are because we get the clinical correlation with understanding the specific injury and location of the patients pain and the physical examination. That said , if it came down to looking at the pictures by themselves, the radiologist has the edge.

Depends: A well trained radiologist, preferably with a fellowship in musculoskeletal radiology, will have the edge over an orthopedic surgeon, especially for unusual diagnoses. However, the orthopod has done a physical examination and knows the history, and that can be a big advantage. As a radiologist, i still lean towards the radiologist being better - they just see more images -its their full time job.