Should We Teach Radiology to Undergraduates?

At a time when many academic radiologists feel pressure to maximize clinical and scholarly productivity, the topic of teaching radiology to undergraduate students may seem particularly out of place. In fact, however, we believe that radiologists can make sufficiently important contributions to the education of college students, that doing so serves the long-term interests of the field of radiology, and that becoming involved in undergraduate education can serve as an additional source of challenge and fulfillment for many radiologists.

For example, over 20,000 students matriculate each year at MD-granting US medical schools, and these students are chosen from a much larger pool of students aiming at medical careers . Too often, undergraduate institutions and their curricula provide no opportunity for students to study with practicing health professionals. When radiologists teach in the undergraduate curriculum, they provide pre-health professions students an important opportunity to interact with role models with substantial, ongoing experience in patient care. This can occur in a variety of academic fields.

Many students in fields such as biology long for an opportunity to study human biology. By drawing on radiology in teaching such preexisting courses, radiologists can give undergraduates an opportunity to witness human anatomy, physiology, and pathology in vivo. This helps them to see more clearly the relevance of their biological education to their future careers, and it also provides them an opportunity to test the waters of patient care, by getting a taste of what studying and practicing medicine someday would actually be like.

Radiologists can also make important contributions to courses in physics. Consider such topics as the physical principles underlying the production of X-rays, the piezoelectric effect, and its role in ultrasound imaging, the physics underlying the production of MR images, and the role of radioisotope decay in nuclear medicine—all of which involve foundational physical principles. Showing students actual radiological images helps to breathe new life into the study of topics that students might otherwise find rather uninteresting.

Radiology is also highly relevant to courses in chemistry and biochemistry. One area of overlap is magnetic resonance spectroscopy, where the same principles underlying medical MR imaging are at work in the analysis of chemical composition . Another intersection point is the development of new radiological contrast agents for computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The same can be said for the development of new molecular imaging agents, where fruitful collaborations with chemists and biochemists will play a crucial role in charting radiology’s future.

Radiologists can also enrich the teaching of engineering . What basic engineering challenges are involved in designing, producing, and operating CT, ultrasound, and MRI equipment? How might radiation exposures, costs of manufacture, and patient scan times be reduced? Many engineering programs already offer biomedical imaging courses, but too often radiologists are nowhere to be found. Even if engineering students have no intention of pursuing medical careers, interacting with practicing radiologists can help build a culture of interprofessional collaboration for decades to come.

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References

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Should We Teach Radiology to Undergraduates?

References

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