Evaluating Medical student Participation, Observation, and Workstation Education in Radiology (EMPOWER)

Purpose: Radiology electives for medical students often conform to the "radi-holiday" stereotype. In recent years, there has been an effort by educators to develop radiology electives that more closely resemble clinical sub-internships. In addition to these efforts, the past decade has seen major advances in radiology education with an emphasis on practical experience and virtual curricula. The purpose of this study was to develop a hybrid curriculum that incorporated traditional radiology rotation elements with recent advances in virtual curricula and a personal workstation.

Methods/Materials: Medical students completed a one-week rotation and were educated using the newly developed hybrid curriculum. Students interpreted studies independently on a radiology workstation, participated in procedures, received mentorship, observed at the workstation, participated in both on-site didactics and virtual didactics, and wrote a presentation. They completed a survey about their experiences. Likert scales were used to score perceived usefulness of each element of the hybrid curriculum (0 = not useful to 5 = very useful). Student's t-test was use to compare means. Data were collected from 2022-2023.

Results: Of 40 participants, the most educational value was allocated to staffing their cases with an attending (4.6), observation (4.4), reviewing resident interpretations (4.3), and independent interpretation (4.1). End-of-rotation presentations (3.7), mentorship (3.6), online curricula (3.4), resident didactics (3.0), and procedural experience (2.7) had education utility as well. Students reported multidisciplinary conferences (2.1) to have educational value. Interest in radiology as a specialty increased from 19% to 57% after completion of the clerkship (p < 0.05).

Conclusions: Medical students that completed a hybrid radiology clerkship reported high educational value associated with using a personal workstation and staffing studies with an attending. More traditional elements (e.g. observation, writing presentations, and mentorship) and online curricula were also reported to have educational utility. Interest in radiology as a career specialty more than tripled after completion of the hybrid clerkship.