Medical Student Performance After a Vertically Integrated Radiology Clerkship

Abstract

Purpose: Proper selection of imaging examinations and basic image interpretation skills are essential for all physicians, yet only approximately 25% of US medical schools require clerkships in radiology. Although there is limited time in most medical school curricula to allow the addition of a required radiology clerkship, the authors developed one that is vertically integrated over a two-year period. This clerkship includes one week of contact with radiologists distributed over the M2 and M3 years, podcasts, online modules, required readings, and presentations. A standard national examination is administered at the end of the clerkship period. This clerkship was designed to address the educational needs of students while occupying minimal time in the curriculum. The purpose of this study was to determine if students completing this clerkship perform as well on a national radiology examination as students from other medical schools, regardless of their curricula.

Methods: At the end of the M3 year, these students take a computer-based radiology examination developed by the Alliance of Medical Student Educators in Radiology and used by students at multiple medical schools nationally. The mean and median scores of these students were compared with those of students at these other institutions.

Results: The mean and median scores of the students were 74% and 74% (standard deviation, 7.5%) compared with 74% and 50% (standard deviation, 8.4%) at other institutions.

Conclusions: Students completing this vertically integrated radiology clerkship had test scores comparable with those of students at other medical schools.

Keywords: Curriculum; education; medical student; radiology.