4:12 PM Abstract No. 216 What medical students know (or think they know) about interventional radiology

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate medical students’ (MS) own perception of their knowledge of IR, to evaluate medical students’ actual knowledge level of IR, and to see if a correlation could be established between knowledge level and interest level in IR. The study was reviewed by the IRB and deemed exempt. A survey link was sent to all matriculates of five medical schools varied by region, public/private, class size, and NIH research ranking. Participants were incentivized with an opportunity to receive one of ten $50 Amazon gift cards. Study participants answered 19 question survey (with 47 subcategory Likert scale questions) administered online using REDCap. Data were collected from October 2018 to January 2019. All analyses were conducted using generalized linear mixed modeling nesting by medical school assuming a binomial distribution with SAS GLIMMIX. 20.5% (125/611) of MS expressed a serious interest in IR. 45% (56/125) were female and 55% (69) were male. 37% (47), 32% (40), 27% (34), and 3% (3) were M1, M2, M3, and M4, respectively. Overall, both groups of MS who are and are not considering IR scored low on both the perception of knowledge (PK) and the actual knowledge (AK) of IR. For PK, MS considering IR were more confident in knowing the diseases treated by IR (mean = 1 vs. 0.8, P = 0.0343), the daily schedule of IR (mean = 0.9 vs. 0.5, P = 0.0009), and IR training pathways (mean = 1.1 vs. 0.6, P = 0.0006) in comparison to MS who are not considering IR. For AK, students considering IR were able to correctly answer the procedures that IR performs more than the MS who are not considering IR (% correct = 0.35 vs. 0.27, P = 0.0286). Regardless of the interest in IR, the majority of sampled US MS expressed overall low levels of certainty and knowledge about the practice and training pathways of IR. MS who are interested in pursuing IR had a slightly greater perception of knowledge about IR but did not correlate with significantly more accurate knowledge. Increasing the level of IR education in medical school curriculum is needed.