Atul Agarwal, School of Medicine
Principal Investigator: Atul Agarwal, assistant professor of clinical radiology & imaging sciences, Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences, School of Medicine
Project Title: “Can I do that?”: Technology Facilitated Experiential Learning Enhances Core Radiology Clerkship Clinical Exposure Equitably Across a Multi-campus Medical School and Improves Student Experience and Learning
Funding Level: $5,000
Abstract: All IUSM medical students are required to complete the Radiology Clerkship, which includes clinical and didactic components. Through the didactic curriculum, students learn how to recognize imaging findings of critical medical conditions, and the clinical experience provides opportunities for students to integrate clinical presentation, laboratory analysis, and imaging findings to establish the diagnosis and inform clinical management of the patient. The clinical experience is constrained by time (2-week clerkship), predominately observational participation, and presence of teaching faculty, with disproportionally less faculty interaction for regional campus students than Indianapolis-based students. Simulation-based medical education (SBME) has been demonstrated to increase learner engagement, confidence, comprehension, and knowledge gain. Furthermore, as a response to pandemic related limitations to in-person learning, distance learning has demonstrated comparable educational experiences. We propose to simulate for the medical students what it is like to be a radiologist by implementing authentic learning activities where students view imaging studies of real patients and generate written reports under faculty supervision. We further propose the use of HIPPA protected web-based conferencing technology to provide the same experience to students across all nine campuses. By improving student access and inclusion and providing an opportunity for active participation, this experiential learning will facilitate a high degree of student engagement, understanding of the field of radiology, and confidence in interpreting imaging studies, and translate to improved competence in our core curriculum. Ultimately, this will help our students take better care of patients during training and in their professional careers.
