Invest in the future: “Hands-on Radiology” summer school

The main results of our survey among thirty participants of the “Hands-on Radiology” summer school can be summarized as follows: (i) visibility of radiology as a specialization was enhanced as the three-day program increased both interest in and knowledge of radiology and participants’ motivation to consider specialization in radiology, (ii) networking is a major factor during such courses among students, and (iii) students favored onsite teaching, teaching by residents, and connecting with other students and tutors. In addition, the format may be suitable to be implemented on an international level.

Our finding that nearly all participants (96.7%) stated that the summer school increased their interest in radiology is consistent with publications on summer schools for students and young residents from other specialties, which also found an increased interest in their specialty among participants after completion of the program. For example, a study of the orthopedics summer school in Germany found that all participants later worked in orthopedics [6]. In this context, it is worth noting that five of the authors of the present study also attended one of the previous “Hands-on Radiology” summer schools.

Additionally, the students in our survey appreciate being able to practice with interventional radiology simulators, as they provide excellent feedback. A similar result was also reported for a gynecological summer school [5]. Interestingly, students see advantages in being taught by young residents as they seem to be more approachable. Nevertheless, attitudes expressed in comments are more mixed and students see advantages and disadvantages for both residents and board-certified radiologists as teachers. A few participants commented that the preference for certain teachers highly depends on the person’s motivation for teaching and not his or her professional position (resident vs. board-certified radiologist). There are several publications regarding the improvement in radiology teaching; for example, Chew et al. investigated whether more hours of radiology teaching would lead to medical students choosing radiology to become radiologists. They found no correlation with the quantity of radiology teaching, suggesting that quality and “hands-on” experience may be stronger motivators [12, 13]. Interestingly, regarding a gain in knowledge, there were comments from students that they overestimated their knowledge initially when comparing themselves to participants from other universities. A few students also commented that they realized that their knowledge in radiology was lower in direct comparison to participants from other universities. This aspect may be mitigated by a more prominent role of radiology within the national curriculum, which has just been set up in Germany [14].

Web-based teaching and teaching models like flipped classroom became more important in both curricular and extracurricular education during the pandemic over the last years. Nevertheless, nearly all participants preferred onsite teaching (96.7%) to online formats, which is in line with several surveys conducted during the pandemic, showing that students state online learning is not comparable to in-person teaching [15]. In the comment section of our survey, many students said that they are more focused on onsite teaching and that they feel they can better ask questions in person than online.

Our survey has some limitations. Only students from Germany and neighboring countries participated, and their medical education may differ from that of other countries. As we could not accept more than 30 participants to ensure hands-on workshops in small groups, our results and the suggestions made by this selected set of participants may not be representative for all medical students. There is probably a selection bias for motivated students who were chosen to participate because of their motivational letters. Additionally, as the students still needed to pay for traveling and accommodation, we may have excluded less well of students who did not apply for financial reasons. This bias needs to be overcome in future studies. The orthopedics summer school already mentioned above could be a shining example where traveling and accommodation costs were reimbursed [6]. In summary, our “Hands-on Radiology” summer school was a real success on a national level. In addition to participating students’ enthusiasm for the subject of radiology, early professional networking among participants is also a great advantage of this event. However, this potential, whether professional or scientific, can be enhanced further by organizing such events on an international level.

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