The Impact of a one day Undergraduate Radiology Course on Confidence and Performance of Medical Students in Interpreting commonly encountered Radiographs

Abstract

This article was migrated. The article was not marked as recommended. IntroductionResearch into undergraduate radiology teaching suggests that medical students feel their radiology training is currently inadequate. Radiology, as a specialty, is generally not taught formally at medical school; rather, it is integrated inconsistently into various other specialties. This study aimed to investigate whether a one day course could help medical students with both confidence and performance.MethodsParticipants consisted of third and fourth year medical students from Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry. The course consisted of morning lectures delivered by radiology registrars and afternoon small group interactive tutorials led by foundation doctors. The topics were chest (CXR), abdominal (AXR), musculoskeletal radiographs and computed-tomography (CT) of the head. The learning outcomes were created in accordance with the Royal College of Radiologists undergraduate curriculum. There was a pre and post course assessment consisting of 15 multiple-choice questions. Additionally a questionnaire was given evaluating their confidence in interpretation (rated from 1= not confident to 10=completely confident). A paired T-test was performed to investigate the significance of the results.Results7 students completed the quiz and questionnaires. The mean assessment scores were 10.43 pre-course and 14.33 post-course. This demonstrated a statistically significant improvement of 4.43 marks or 27% (p=0.0004 95% CI 2.59 to 5.41). Likewise, students demonstrated a significant increase in confidence in all four areas. Confidence in CXR interpretation increased by 21%, or 2.1 points (p=0.0113 95% CI 0.69 to 3.60); AXR increased by 31%, or 3.14 points (p=0.0008 95% CI 1.90 to 4.39); CT Head increased by 44%, or 4.43 points (p=0.0002 95% CI 3.03 to 5.83) and Musculoskeletal X-ray increased by 37%, or 3.71 points (p=0.002 95% CI 1.97 to 5.46).ConclusionOur results demonstrate that a one-day intensive course statistically raised both confidence and knowledge in interpreting common radiographs. The combination of lectures and interactive small group teaching sessions seemed to allow students to consolidate their knowledge and apply it more successfully when tested in the post-course assessment. Additional research is required to further explore the impact of the course and the plan is to run a second course at the start of the next academic year.