Where do radiology trainees go for help when they are on call in a high-stakes and time-sensitive environment? Overwhelmingly, they are looking to online resources rather than traditional journals and textbooks, according to a May 6 survey study in Clinical Imaging.
The findings suggest that self-education continues to play a major role in trainee education and may help identify potential strategies to help support trainee growth and development.
"With the documented decline in face-to-face read-outs over the past five years and social distancing practices related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, self-education is taking a more and more prominent role in trainee education," wrote corresponding author Dr. Ahrya Derakhshani of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
Studies have yet to assess the effects of the development of expansive open-source radiology educational resources on the information-seeking behaviors of on-call radiology residents, according to the authors. So, they decided to survey radiology fellows and residents at three major metropolitan area academic institutions: UCLA, New York University (NYU), and Emory University. Sites were chosen according to the affiliations of the authors.
A total of 78 responses from trainees were recorded. Of these, 26 were from UCLA, 24 were from NYU, and 28 were from Emory. Forty-six trainees were male. Thirty-one trainees were under 30 years old, 43 were between the ages of 30 and 35, and four were over 35. Survey topics included demographic information, on-call volumes, on-call resource seeking behaviors, preferred first and second line on-call resources, and rationales for using a particular resource.
Twenty-one trainees (26.9%) sought information from educational resources "infrequently" (defined as 1-5 times per 10-hour shift), 47 trainees (60.3%) sought information from educational resources "regularly" (defined as 6-10 times per 10-hour shift), and 10 trainees (12.8%) sought information from educational resources "very frequently" (defined as multiple times per hour).
| Top trainee radiology reference choices for challenging cases | ||
| Second choice | First choice | |
| Radiopaedia | 15% | 55% |
| StatDx | 21% | 15% |
| 16% | 6% | |
| Radiology assistant | 8% | 1% |
| Peer-reviewed literature | 14% | 1% |
| Learning radiology | 1% | 0% |
| Radiology textbooks | 3% | 0% |
Simply put, when in the on-call setting, trainees are accessing the easiest and most rapidly available resources on hand to help them answer clinical questions, the authors wrote.
During call, the availability of subspecialty-trained attending radiologists to review challenging cases in real-time has shown to decrease turnaround time, improve resident perception of on-call educational experience, and increase referring physician satisfaction, the authors noted. Yet, a 2019 survey of chief residents nationwide demonstrated that 65% of residency programs still do not have overnight attending coverage.
"Further study is needed to understand the long-term educational impacts of these new information-seeking practices on the youngest generation of radiologists," the authors concluded.
