Making Medical Teaching Interactive: Catering Learning Needs in Radiology

Abstract

We attempt to explore how to integrate medical students learning needs in teaching imaging courses in radiology through means of interaction. An interactive teaching approach will allow radiologists as medical teachers to flexibly cater student learning needs face to face. An interactive teaching approach supports addressing learning needs through dialogue, while being efficient for clinical teaching and effective for medical learning. As part of an ongoing study the following initial results can be assumed: By interacting, radiologists and students can negotiate learning needs in a needoriented approach as to tailor teaching objectives to demand; By interacting, radiologists and students can rapidly bring across learning and teaching objectives besides a busy clinical routine; By cooperating with co-teachers of other imaging disciplines, radiologists can tailor clinical content to student learning needs, and avoid redundancies within medical education. Interacting could encourage medical students to learn about image interpreting and demonstrating basic clinical patterns in imaging and case reporting; Interacting while negotiating learning and teaching objectives, could be time-efficient due to staff shortage, high workload, numerous case conferences and limited teaching time in clinical routine at teaching and university hospitals; Cooperating with co-teachers interfacing with radiology would add to tailor content to learning needs in understanding common indications and contraindications for diagnostic work-up, clinical and therapeutic decisions in clinical and interventional radiology, and to reach a consensus avoiding redundancies.

Multidisciplinary Conferences for Radiology Teaching: Why Medical Students Should See the Significance of Imaging and Lifelong Learning

“…They should participate as MCs embody educational grounds of cooperative contribution to patient care (Mazzaferro & Majno, 2011;Burman et al, 2014;Saul, 2018). If MCs offer lifelong learning opportunities for physicians (Van Houten-Schat et al, 2018;Ramamurthy et al, 2019), why not explore these for students when high workload and staff shortage hamper additional teaching in already busy clinical routine of radiologists (Choi & Filice, 2010;ESR, 2011;Petsch et al, 2020a). The three reasons presented to seize MCs as potential teaching opportunities for medical students in radiology, can be supportive in 1. emphasizing the significant role of radiology for MCs; 2. consequently advocating to prepare students for MCs in medical practice; and 3. stressing the benefit of MCs as lifelong learning opportunities.…”

“…Radiologists contribute to an improved and more thorough understanding of radiology, and by this to improved patient management . Particularly students can benefit from such teaching opportunities as to successively learn criteria for normal and abnormal findings in diagnostic imaging, to demonstrate basic clinical patterns in imaging and case reporting (Nyhsen et al, 2013;Petsch et al, 2020a), and to explain indications or contraindications. Senior consultant radiologists can facilitate educational opportunities by involving students in MC preparation and interaction, and by giving incentives for active contribution (Gunderman & Bedi, 2013).…”

“…Assisting tasks in writing up and updating patient lists, or taking notes during MCs, can give a small insight what it means to prepare one to several MCs a day during busy clinical routine. Assisting shows that MC preparation and mandatory participation still needs to take place despite of hampering factors such as workflow (Choi & Filice, 2010), high workload, staff shortage (ESR, 2011;Petsch et al, 2020a), or covering sick leave. During a global state of emergency such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, MCs around the globe need to continue ensuring patient management and enabling best patient outcome.…”

“…It explains indications and contraindications for radiological imaging, that might otherwise remain vague for them following radiologists during busy clinical routine in the CT, MRI, ultrasound reading and examinations rooms, in the angiography and interventional neuroradiology sections or in emergency rooms. Because of high workload in private practice, at local hospitals, or university and teaching hospitals, there might be limited time for additional teaching in routine (Van Houten-Schat et al, 2018;Ramamurthy et al, 2019;Petsch et al, 2020a), so that MCs can complement such additional teaching. It shows that image interpreting and clinical decisions made by radiologists during routine must be justified at MCs, and that contributions made to MCs need to be responsible and up-to-date (Mazzaferro & Majno, 2011;Oleaga et al, 2019).…”

“…MCs embody educational grounds that radiologists and different physicians contribute to in discussions and in often challenging decisions (Mazzaferro & Majno, 2011;Lesslie & Parikh, 2017;Saul, 2018). MCs hence offer educational opportunities of lifelong learning for all physicians (Van Houten-Schat et al, 2018;Ramamurthy et al, 2019), and can complement to teaching when high workload hampers additional teaching in already busy clinical routine (ESR, 2011;Pascual et al, 2011;Petsch et al, 2020a). This article presents three reasons to seize MCs as potential educational opportunities for teaching medical students in radiology elaborating on the: 1. significance of radiology for MCs; 2. preparation of medical students in radiology for MCs; and 3. exploration of MCs for lifelong learning.…”