Trends in interventional radiology: Survey of medical students at an educational symposium

Abstract

Objective: Symposiums are great avenues to expose students to interventional radiology (IR) and gauge their interest in the field. This study compares student interest and knowledge of the specialty before and after a state- wide IR symposium. Materials and Methods: A state-wide IR symposium consisted of lecture didactics and interactive hands-on IR simulations. Pre-symposium and post-symposium survey assessments were provided to each attendee to complete. The surveys remained anonymous and were performed for quality assurance purposes. The survey included questions on knowledge of IR, interest in IR, application strategies for the IR match, and career options in IR. Results: A total of 101 medical students registered for the symposium. Thirty-nine completed the pre-symposium survey and 40 completed the post-symposium survey. About 71.1% of the respondents reported “Little Knowledge” of IR before the symposium, which decreased to 40.5% after the symposium. Furthermore, 21% of the respondents believed that they had a “Good Foundation” in IR before the symposium and 59.5% after the symposium (P < 0.0001). The percentage of students planning to pursue IR increased from 35.9% to 45.9% (P = 0.160) after the symposium. About 77.8% reported that having an IR clinic is important in their career in the post-symposium survey compared to 64.1% in the pre-symposium survey (P = 0.077). Conclusions: Symposiums are an effective method in exposing medical students to IR. Students have expressed both strong interest in the field and increased knowledge post-symposium. Prospective applicants have reported dual applying to the integrated IR and diagnostic radiology (DR) residencies due to their concern about the competitive nature of integrated IR due to small number of positions available.