Improvement in reporting skills of radiology residents with a structured reporting curriculum

Radiology residents must acquire dictation and reporting skills to meet Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Examination requirements and provide optimal patient care. Historically, these skills have been taught informally and vary between institutions and among radiologists. A structured curriculum improves resident report quality when using a quantitative grading scheme. This study describes the implementation of such a curriculum and evaluates its utility in tracking resident progress.

We implemented a three-stage reporting curriculum in our diagnostic radiology residency program in 2009. Stages 1 and 2 involve instruction and formative feedback composed of suggestions for improvement in a 360° format from faculty, peers, and others within the resident's sphere of influence. The third stage involves individual, biannual, written feedback with scored reports specifically assessing four categories: succinctness, spelling/grammar, clarity, and responsible referral. Biannual scores were collected from 2009 to 2013, sorted by year of residency training (R1 to R4), and average training level scores were statistically compared.

Review of 1500 reports over a 4-year period yielded a total of 153 scores: 54, 36, 29, and 34 from R1, R2, R3, and R4 residents, respectively. The mean (standard deviation) scores for R1, R2, R3, and R4 residents were 10.20 (1.06), 10.25 (0.81), 10.5 (0.74), and 10.75 (0.69), respectively. Post hoc analysis identified significant differences between R1 and R4 residents (P = .012) and R2 and R4 residents (P = .009).

Residents' reporting scores showed significant improvement over the course of their residency training. This indicates that there may be a benefit in using an organized reporting curriculum to track resident progress in producing reports that may improve patient care.