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Get Creative With Your Radiology Learning
Sep 12, 2020
Read Time: 2 min
by Novarad
From preschool to med school, the COVID-19 pandemic has made education more complicated for everyone, but it's also providing opportunities we've never had.
Advancements in communication and technology could help fill in gaps for medical students and early-career radiologists who don't have access to some of the traditional training resources. Here's a look at some non-traditional ways to improve radiology learning, and involve newer generations more than ever.
Teaching Radiology With Social Media
Social media may not be the first thing you think of when considering new ways to learn radiology. A new study, however, found that Snapchat could help residents learn emergency radiology.Over four weeks, radiology residents from LSU Health New Orleans School of Medicine used Snapchat to view five emergent radiologic cases, and used a classroom projector to view five other similar cases. Each image showed diagnoses that required immediate communication to ordering physicians.
Study authors note that the residents, who were all millennials, were more accurate with reading the Snapchat images than the images shown on the projector.
Practicing Radiology During a Pandemic
The COVID-19 public health emergency has disrupted regular radiology training, especially hands-on, in-person teaching. As an alternative, new radiologists could conduct self-ultrasound tests.
Experts with KK Women's and Children's Hospital in Singapore described this option in Academic Radiology. Radiology trainees used empty ultrasound rooms to perform ultrasound tests on themselves. The residents worked with a list of body parts to be imaged, such as the bowels and musculoskeletal system.
The study authors noted that this method helped increase empathy in trainees, since they received firsthand experience in what ultrasound imaging patients experience.
The residents who used self-ultrasound training scored just as well as the previous group of students. However, the authors noted that this type of training should be used to supplement, not replace the normal program.
So, What Next?
No matter how you learn, or how COVID-19 has affected your business, your practice’s imaging software is the key to effectively putting what you’ve learned about radiology into practice in a timely, efficient manner.
For example, the ability to share images quickly (and securely) can make a big difference in the way you practice. New radiologists also need to be able to start training on your preferred software as soon as possible. Making sure that your workflow and your PACS layout is tailored to the way you work, as well as user-friendly, can make a big difference in how quickly new hires can catch on.
We (obviously) recommend our suite of clinical solutions to improve communications, cost efficiency, and patient safety -- and to give everyone the best tools they can have to learn successfully. We can give you flexible terms and predictable pricing, with no additional migration costs -- so start building a better future for your practice. Learn more today.