We discuss the benefits of maintaining an active, rigorous, and highly structured grand rounds (GR) program in an academic radiology department. These benefits include education for faculty (continuing medical education), fellows, and residents and a venue for building collaboration and camaraderie within the department and institution, while also allowing for building ties with the radiology community at large. In addition, we illustrate how to build and sustain a dynamic GR program based on our collective 6-year experience in running such a program at our institution that has offered more than 180 GR and hosted more than 90 visiting professors during this period. Maintaining such a program requires infrastructure, financial support, careful planning, and considerable effort. We believe that this article can serve as a “how-to” guide or framework to initiate and maintain such a program.
Over the past 6 years (2006–2011), we have developed a rigorous and active grand rounds (GR) and visiting professor (VP) program in our academic radiology department. This has become an integral part of the educational programs in our department and GR are attended regularly by faculty and trainees, and on many occasions, by technologists, nurses, and nonclinical staff. Initiating and sustaining this program has required considerable thought and effort and we have learned many lessons in the process. We continue to streamline our program to make it more efficient and useful. The purpose of this article is to describe our experience in developing and implementing a consistent program and to encourage other departments to consider investing in such an educational program. We welcome feedback and shared wisdom from readers involved in running GR and VP programs at their departments.
Organization, content, and rationale
We offer about 30 GR during the academic year, which extends from September through May. About 18 of these GR are presented by VPs from academic institutions around the country. We strive for a balanced representation of the 10 clinical subspecialty areas of radiology ( Fig 1 ). It is not always possible to have an even distribution between these 10 areas, either because we do not have sufficient nominations for a certain area or we are unable to schedule the nominated speakers in a given year. Thus some areas may be disproportionately represented in any given year, but we strive for a balance over 2 to 3 years.
There is an 11th area of interest, which does have more representation in any given year. This provides the “big picture” and involves knowledge relevant to our practice and profession in general. Included in this group of GR is an annual lecture on sleep Deprivation–a requirement of the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) . We also have a dedicated annual GR on “The State of the Department Address” by the chair, which is attended by a much broader segment of our department in addition to clinical and research personnel. There are other GR on radiology education, quality in clinical care, and ethics and professionalism. In addition, each year, we try to identify gap areas of clinical and scientific knowledge in our department and target specific topics.
Strategic Organization
Our year-long program is divided into four tracks.
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Content
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Organizational Team
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Rationale
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CME
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Networking
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Recruitment
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GR program timeline
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VP Timeline and Tasks
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Table 1
Typical Visiting Professor Schedule
Tuesday
Wednesday
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Adminstrative requirements
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Techniques to encourage attendance
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Build a Routine
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Food
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Advertising
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Faculty Incentive Plan
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Lessons learned and conclusions
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References
1. ACGME Task Force on Quality Care and Professionalism: Process for Developing Recommendations on new Supervision and Resident Duty Hour Standards. http://acgme-2010standards.org/pdf/Impact_Statement.pdf . Accessed February 6, 2012.
2. American Board of Radiology MOC. http://www.theabr.org/moc/moc_dr_landing.html . Accessed February 6, 2012.
3. Kruskal J.B., Anderson S., Yam C.S., et. al.: Strategies for establishing a comprehensive quality and performance program in a radiology department. RadioGraphics 2009; 29: pp. 325-329.
4. Neymayer L., Wako E., Fergestaad J., et. al.: Impact of journal articles and grand rounds on practice: CT scanning in appendicitis. J Gastrointestinal Surg 2002; 6: pp. 338-341.
5. Mueller P.S., Litin S.C., Sowden M.L., et. al.: Strategies for improving attendance at medical grand rounds at an academic medical center. Mayo Clin Proc 2003; 78: pp. 549-553.
6. Segovis C.M., Mueller P.S., Rethlefsen M.L., et. al.: If you feed them, they will come: a prospective study of the effects of complimentary food on attendance and physician attitudes at medical grand rounds at an academic medical center. Br Med Educ 2007; 7: pp. 22.
7. Levine M.S.: The visiting professorship: to Fargo and beyond. Acad Radiol 2010; 17: pp. 808-809.