Scholarship in Radiology Education

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When one performs a Google search using the keywords “scholarship,” “radiology,” and “education” the results are quite surprising. For many people it appears, the term “scholarship” refers only to monetary support for the educational and training programs in radiology. For others, it refers to funding used to sponsor residents and fellows to attend professional conferences. When the same keywords were used for a PubMed search, 144 articles were identified. Most of the PubMed articles deal with residents and fellows training in radiology and its many subspecialties. This body of literature indicates the practice of educational scholarship within academic departments of radiology (i.e., the systematic documentation of teaching, learning, and assessment of learning outcomes). Only one article expresses the concept of scholarship in its full meaning within the community of academic radiologists. For the authors, …the contributions of educators to the viability and growth of the specialty require equal legitimacy to research in academic recognition. Development of educators and documentation of educational activities are key elements in achieving academic status for scholarly activity (Wood and May 2006). From these cursory observations, it appears that there is a principal need to first define the term “scholarship” in the sense that we are using it in this book, where the goal is to promote and enhance the concept and formal implementation of scholarship in the teaching and learning of radiology within academic departments of radiology. Once the concept of educational scholarship is clearly defined, like-minded radiologists (who are already practicing teaching under this paradigm) may find opportunities to engage with the ideas and experiences of others through this endeavor. 2