Learning From Experience- Confronting Challenges and Adapting to Change in a Large Academic Abdominal Radiology...

Substantial organizational changes, increasing clinical volumes, and the COVID-19 pandemic presented compound stressors to faculty radiologists in our large academic abdominal radiology division and necessitated multiple changes in our practice.

To address the challenges and establish group consensus, we conducted a virtual divisional faculty retreat centered on themes of team building, clinical work, trainee education, and faculty mentorship. A pre-retreat survey evaluated satisfaction with aspects of professional life and clinical work practices and invited personal reflections. Survey data were presented in the retreat segments focused on each theme, and subsequent discussion was facilitated in small group breakouts.

Responses to the team-building survey revealed common values and sources of gratitude, including health, family and meaningful work and relationships. Faculty reported a strong sense of personal accomplishment, but with varied emotional exhaustion scores. Faculty were satisfied with remote work assignments but identified opportunities to improve the clinical work schedule including reversion of some remote assignments to in-person and increased interventional radiology shift staggering. Compared to pre-COVID practice, faculty respondents perceived giving lower quality and less frequent feedback to trainees; evolving educational resource needs were identified. A more formal approach to faculty mentoring was sought. A post-retreat survey revealed high participant satisfaction.

In the future, we plan to continue divisional retreat activities to respond to evolving challenges and further improve team building, clinical workflow, trainee education, and faculty mentorship.