Medical Education and Engagement in a Virtual World

Radiology education, for the most part, has cleverly adapted to the new virtual world. Online lecture series, virtual readouts and zoom-based conferences have been the mainstay during the pandemic. Educators have enthusiastically developed creative forums and opportunities to engage residents and medical students in radiology. As the ACR Medical Student Subcommittee continues another year of virtual meetings, we are incredibly excited to share our plans and projects with you for the upcoming year. To continue our promise to expose students to radiology, we will be offering scholarship opportunities to the 2022 ACR Annual Meeting for the third year in a row. What had previously been a book stipend, this year’s scholarship will be for travel grants to one of our association’s flagship events.

As part of our mission to engage students, we are getting ready to host our second Annual ACR Medical Student Symposium virtually. Last year, over 500 medical students registered for the conference, making it one of the largest medical student-led events at the ACR. Our Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML) team will be unveiling one of the most anticipated resources for trainees. This mini-AI curriculum will expand on this summer’s AI panel discussion and offer an in-depth insight on advances in machine learning — and how AI is so intimately involved in our field. Our Diversity and Inclusion (DI) team is expecting to roll out a new social media project that will highlight what makes our specialty diverse and unique.

Two upcoming initiatives also have been developed to address the academic and ethical side of radiology. The Diagnostic Radiology (DR) Journal Club team will host webinars with radiology faculty and medical students to discuss the most contemporary research in radiology today. The Bioethics and Humanity team have designed avenues to discuss how radiologists can keep the patient experience at the center of how we practice radiology.

Be on the lookout for more updates throughout the year, including updates to the mentorship program, match day and more. More information on all our events can be found on the Medical Student Hub or in this new Medical Student newsletter that will show up in your inbox bimonthly. We have an exciting year planned for you, so please enjoy and immerse yourself into the virtual world of radiology.