Teaching Temporal Bone Anatomy CT Scan as a Psychomotor Skill; A Quasi-Experimental Study

Abstract

BACKGROUND Reviewing and interpretation of cross-sectional imaging studies has become the main part of Medical Imaging (formerly known as Radiology) practice over the past twenty years. The rapid changes in the practice of medical imaging however has not been paralleled by development of new teaching methods. In the current study, we present a teaching method for the radiology residents the cross-sectional anatomy of the temporal bone as a psychomotor skill.METHODS In this cross-sectional study, we included a total number of 21 radiology resident of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences for a 2-month period. We provided a teaching scheme based on the Gagne’s theory which consisted of 6 steps ie: 1-gaining attention, 2-informing the learner of the objective, 3-stimulating recall of prerequisite learning, 4-presenting the stimulus material, 5-providing learning guidance, and 6-eliciting the performance, 7-providing feedback, assessing the performance and 8-enhancing retention and transfer. The residents were evaluated before and after the training sessions using objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), resident satisfaction and educational goal achievement questionnaires.RESULTS We have included a total number of 21 radiology residents with mean age of 27.9 ± 8.6 (range from 26-38) years, 14 (66.6%) men and 7 (33.4%) women. We observed that the OSCE score improved significantly after the twenty-minute session (2.57 ± 1.62 vs. 8.02 ± 2.43; p<0.001 ). Mean resident satisfaction score measured by standardized questionnaires was 7.63 ± 2.86 on scale of 10. Regarding the achievement of educational goals, we observed that the score increased significantly after the mini-sessions (4.33 ± 1.22 vs. 8.27 ± 2.46; p=0.021 ).CONCLUSIONS Considering the interpretation of cross sectional images as a psychomotor skill, may be proven to be an effective teaching method. Using a standardized approach and defining predetermined transition points in moving between orthogonal planes can enhance learning radiology as it is today.