Part II: preparing and assessing first-year radiology resident on-call readiness technical implementation

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Radiology Informatics

Background:

• Assessing resident preparedness for emergency department (ED) call is crucial.
• Traditional methods may not adequately evaluate readiness for overnight radiology duties.

Purpose of the Study:

• To describe the technical design and implementation of a Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM)-based interactive examination system.
• To evaluate the system's effectiveness in assessing first-year radiology residents' readiness for ED call.

Main Methods:

• The system comprises a PC-based DICOM storage server (Mallinckrodt Central Test Node) and a Java-based DICOM viewer (zDicom ActiveX).
• Residents reviewed actual clinical cases based on the American Society of Emergency Radiology core curriculum within a timed examination.
• Scoring was performed by two staff radiologists, with upper-level residents serving as controls.

Main Results:

• The system has been successfully used since 2003 for resident readiness evaluations.
• The examination format allows for the assessment of clinical findings and recommendations.
• The system provides a standardized method for evaluating preparedness for overnight ED call.

Conclusions:

• The described DICOM-based system is effective for evaluating radiology resident readiness.
• Implementation procedures for a PC-based platform are detailed.
• Freely available DICOM viewing software makes this a cost-effective solution (approx. $2000) for academic institutions.