Medical Student Engagement and Educational Value of a Remote Clinical Radiology Learning Environment: Creation of Virtual Read-Out Sessions in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Rationale and Objectives: The need for social distancing has resulted in rapid restructuring of medical student education in radiology. While students traditionally spend time learning in the reading room, remote clinical learning requires material shared without direct teaching at the radiology workstation. Can remote clinical learning meet or exceed the educational value of the traditional in-person learning experience? Can student engagement be matched or exceeded in a remote learning environment? Materials and Methods: To replace the in-person reading room experience, a small-group learning session for medical students named Virtual Read-Out (VRO) was developed using teleconferencing software. After Institutional Review Board approval, two student groups were anonymously surveyed to assess differences in student engagement and perceived value between learning environments: "Conventional" students participating in the reading room (before the pandemic) and "Remote" students participating in VRO sessions. Students reported perceived frequency of a series of five-point Likert statements. Based on number of respondents, an independent t-test was performed to determine the significance of results between two groups. Results: Twenty-seven conventional and 41 remote students responded. Remote students reported modest but significantly higher frequency of active participation in reviewing radiology exams (p < 0.05). There was significantly lower frequency of reported boredom among Remote students (p < 0.05). There was no significant difference in perceived educational value between the two groups. Conclusion: Students report a high degree of teaching quality, clinical relevance, and educational value regardless of remote or in-person learning format. Remote clinical radiology education can be achieved with equal or greater student interaction and perceived value in fewer contact hours than conventional learning in the reading room.

Technologic optimization of a virtual disease focused panel during the COVID pandemic and beyond

“…About 23% of the respondents in our DFP survey needed to watch some kind of tutorial for use of one or the other digital platform. As reported by other studies, although some programs may require time to get adjusted, we observed that the learning curve was quick for the DFP as witnessed by the lack of difficulties in later meetings [24,25]. Regarding multiinstitutional research among different authors, there may still be issues with all readers getting together at the same time for consensus studies, and may need lot of co-ordination.…”

Application of digital education in undergraduate nursing and medical interns during the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review

“…The 16 papers used a variety of methodologies, including one cross-sectional study, two quantitative descriptive studies, two quasi-experimental studies, one prospective cohort study and the rest of the ten mixed-method studies. The publications were devoted to exploring the different modalities of digital education, including virtual reality-based simulation training (3 studies) ( De Ponti et al, 2020 ; Kang et al, 2020 ; Weston and Zauche, 2020 ), teleconsultation and virtual rounds (3 studies) ( Bala et al, 2021 ; Sukumar et al, 2021 ; Weber et al, 2021 ), web-based specialized skills learning (2 studies) ( Alpert et al, 2020 ; Shahrjerdi et al, 2020 ), and multimodal online curriculums (8 studies) ( Coffey et al, 2020 ; He et al, 2021 ; Kaliyadan et al, 2020 ; Kasai et al, 2021 ; Michener et al, 2020 ; Samueli et al, 2020 ; Williams et al, 2021 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ). Study outcomes were measured utilizing a series of homemade tools.…”

“…Methodological quality, as appraised by the MMAT exercise for the included 16 articles, ranged from 25% to 100%, with one study rated at 100% ( Kang et al, 2020 ); two studies rated at 75% ( Alpert et al, 2020 ; Weston and Zauche, 2020 ); five studied rated at 50% ( Coffey et al, 2020 ; He et al, 2021 ; Kasai et al, 2021 ; Shahrjerdi et al, 2020 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ), and the remaining eight studies rated at 25% ( Bala et al, 2021 ; De Ponti et al, 2020 ; Kaliyadan et al, 2020 ; Michener et al, 2020 ; Samueli et al, 2020 ; Sukumar et al, 2021 ; Weber et al, 2021 ; Williams et al, 2021 ) ( Table 2 ).…”

“…In this study, most of the students believed the new web-based surgical instruction was as difficult/easy as conventional face-to-face teaching, and they considered that this new teaching format was worthy of recommendation. Another study that performed remote radiology review by means of WebEx, a teleconferencing and screen sharing application, gauged the learning experience of two groups of interns (in-person group and VRO group) in reviewing radiology exams ( Alpert et al, 2020 ). The results showed that remote training was more entertaining and that students tended to play an active role in reviewing radiology exams.…”

“…Third, non-English language articles were excluded due to lack of translation resources, which was likely to influence the findings of the results. Moreover, only four of the included studies ( Alpert et al, 2020 ; Kang et al, 2020 ; Weston and Zauche, 2020 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ) contained controls, so the assessment of the effectiveness of digital education was relatively incomplete. Although randomized controlled trials that provide the highest level of evidence for the effectiveness of interventions are not appropriate for educational research ( Tudor Car et al, 2019a ), a quasi-experimental design can be used at least in future studies to explore the effectiveness of standalone digital education in health professions.…”