Establishing an Online Educational Teaching File on Instagram for an Academic Radiology Department: Proof-of-Concept.

Instagram is a powerful social media platform, which can serve as the ideal educational companion app for a visually rich discipline such as Radiology. Instagram facilitates easy content creation allowing for educators to utilize this resource for easy and rapid dissemination of educational content. The authors describe their experience of creating an online publicly available radiology teaching file on Instagram as a proof-of-concept, to help other individuals and institutions in leveraging social media to create and share quality educational content for current and future trainees.

Preserving the value of legacy film-based teaching files in pediatric radiology.

Senior pediatric radiologists who have spent a major portion of their careers interpreting conventional film-screen radiographic studies have collected a wealth of hard-copy teaching material that is at risk of becoming obsolete. The teaching value and usefulness of analog film teaching files can be preserved using available hardware and standard software. The final product can be made available in a high-quality digital format to students, trainees and faculty without complicated search-and-retrieval methodology. This paper describes a relatively simple and low-cost procedure to preserve and use this source of wisdom and experience. It also emphasizes the role that such a resource can play as part of a comprehensive educational program.

Student-led peer review of an online teaching file: perspectives after 2 years.

PROBLEM: Opportunities for self-directed learning were missing from our medical school curriculum in general and on our radiology electives specifically. Our objective was to explore the feasibility and benefits of using medical students in the development of our student-created teaching files. APPROACH: In 2018, a website was developed at our institution to support medical student radiology education and create a repository for the online publication of student-developed teaching cases. Students participating in radiology clerkships at our institution had an opportunity to submit case presentations for publication to our online teaching file following peer review. The medical students participated in the peer review process facilitated by the faculty director of radiology undergraduate medical education. The faculty member oversaw the training of new student editors and the development of a peer review guide. OUTCOMES: The peer review guide included goals of the teaching file project and direction regarding the peer review process. Student editors were trained using the peer review guide in conjunction with individual meetings with the faculty mentor. At twenty-four months, 82 student-developed cases had been published to the online teaching file following medical student peer review. The teaching file had garnered 3884 page views. NEXT STEPS: The medical student-led peer review process meets core competencies in self-directed learning. The authors plan to explore the application of peer-assisted learning theories to the editing and peer-review process.

Digitizing an Analog Radiography Teaching File Under Time Constraint: Trade-Offs in Efficiency and Image Quality.

We digitized the radiography teaching file at Black Lion Hospital (Addis Ababa, Ethiopia) during a recent trip, using a standard digital camera and a fluorescent light box. Our goal was to photograph every radiograph in the existing library while optimizing the final image size to the maximum resolution of a high quality tablet computer, preserving the contrast resolution of the radiographs, and minimizing total library file size. A secondary important goal was to minimize the cost and time required to take and process the images. Three workers were able to efficiently remove the radiographs from their storage folders, hang them on the light box, operate the camera, catalog the image, and repack the radiographs back to the storage folder. Zoom, focal length, and film speed were fixed, while aperture and shutter speed were manually adjusted for each image, allowing for efficiency and flexibility in image acquisition. Keeping zoom and focal length fixed, which kept the view box at the same relative position in all of the images acquired during a single photography session, allowed unused space to be batch-cropped, saving considerable time in post-processing, at the expense of final image resolution. We present an analysis of the trade-offs in workflow efficiency and final image quality, and demonstrate that a few people with minimal equipment can efficiently digitize a teaching file library.

Assessment of feasibility of running RSNA's MIRC on a Raspberry Pi: a cost-effective solution for teaching files in radiology.

PURPOSE: The value of a teaching case repository in radiology training programs is immense. The allocation of resources for putting one together is a complex issue, given the factors that have to be coordinated: hardware, software, infrastructure, administration, and ethics. Costs may be significant and cost-effective solutions are desirable. METHODS: We chose Medical Imaging Resource Center (MIRC) to build our teaching file. It is offered by RSNA for free. For the hardware, we chose the Raspberry Pi, developed by the Raspberry Foundation: a small control board developed as a low cost computer for schools also used in alternative projects such as robotics and environmental data collection. Its performance and reliability as a file server were unknown to us. For the operational system, we chose Raspbian, a variant of Debian Linux, along with Apache (web server), MySql (database server) and PHP, which enhance the functionality of the server. A USB hub and an external hard drive completed the setup. Installation of software was smooth. RESULTS: The Raspberry Pi was able to handle very well the task of hosting the teaching file repository for our division. Uptime was logged at 100 %, and loading times were similar to other MIRC sites available online. We setup two servers (one for backup), each costing just below $200.00 including external storage and USB hub. CONCLUSION: It is feasible to run RSNA's MIRC off a low-cost control board (Raspberry Pi). Performance and reliability are comparable to full-size servers for the intended purpose of hosting a teaching file within an intranet environment.

The key image and case log application: new radiology software for teaching file creation and case logging that incorporates elements of a social network.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: To create novel radiology key image software that is easy to use for novice users, incorporates elements adapted from social networking Web sites, facilitates resident and fellow education, and can serve as the engine for departmental sharing of interesting cases and follow-up studies. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Using open-source programming languages and software, radiology key image software (the key image and case log application, KICLA) was developed. This system uses a lightweight interface with the institutional picture archiving and communications systems and enables the storage of key images, image series, and cine clips. It was designed to operate with minimal disruption to the radiologists' daily workflow. Many features of the user interface have been inspired by social networking Web sites, including image organization into private or public folders, flexible sharing with other users, and integration of departmental teaching files into the system. We also review the performance, usage, and acceptance of this novel system. RESULTS: KICLA was implemented at our institution and achieved widespread popularity among radiologists. A large number of key images have been transmitted to the system since it became available. After this early experience period, the most commonly encountered radiologic modalities are represented. A survey distributed to users revealed that most of the respondents found the system easy to use (89%) and fast at allowing them to record interesting cases (100%). Hundred percent of respondents also stated that they would recommend a system such as KICLA to their colleagues. CONCLUSIONS: The system described herein represents a significant upgrade to the Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine teaching file paradigm with efforts made to maximize its ease of use and inclusion of characteristics inspired by social networking Web sites that allow the system additional functionality such as individual case logging.

Pulmonary embolism teaching file: a simple pilot study for rapidly increasing pulmonary embolism recognition among new residents using interactive cross-sectional imaging.

RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES: Chest radiographs can be demanding, making this an area of focus during most first-year resident chest rotations. This often comes at a cost of cross-sectional imaging, and new residents are often not initially comfortable with reading chest computed tomographic angiograms (CTAs) for pulmonary embolisms (PEs). We created a teaching file of CTAs to improve the detection of PEs. MATERIALS AND METHODS: For initial testing, we used videos of 25 cases, which played for 90 seconds (to allow multiple passes) to residents with and without call experience. The presence and location of PEs and the readers' confidence scores were recorded. After initial testing, first-year residents without call experience were given 20 separate known positive CTA videos to scroll through on their own. The goal of this was to allow for individual review and development of individual search strategies. A second testing was done with all levels of residents with the same initial 25 cases, re-randomized to evaluate for improvement. RESULTS: Initially, first-year residents without call experience identified an average of 14.7 of 18 examinations positive for PEs (versus 15.8 for more senior residents; P < .04). After reviewing the 20 known positive cases, the first-year residents improved, averaging 16.6 (versus 14.7 earlier; P < .01). CONCLUSIONS: We created a fast, simple way to expose novice residents to CTA examinations and increase their accuracy in identifying PEs. After using a teaching file, the ability to recognize PEs improved significantly, and scores were no longer significantly different from those of residents with call experience.

Establishment of Teaching Files in Medicine Curriculum Construction / 中华医学教育探索杂志

The standard administration and the management of the teaching files have been built firstly in the teaching and research apartment of medicine.A variety of databases to achieve files informatics and a series of teaching resources have been reinforced for recent years.Informatics technology,curriculum construction and teaching methods have been conformed to take full advantage of the teaching files.