Near-Peer Teaching in Radiology Symposia: A Success Story in Residents as Teachers

Peer learning and near-peer teaching have been described in many specialties, less so in Radiology. We present near-peer teaching whereby residents present a series of didactic sessions at the course outset in the form of "symposia" and perform a scholarly activity in the form of teaching. We aim to demonstrate how near-peer teaching in symposia front-loaded within an introductory radiology course can improve medical student satisfaction.

A total of 169 students were enrolled over a period of 3 years, 55 before (2017-2018) and 114 (2018-2020) after the introduction of the symposium. Anonymous course evaluations were collected from all students. In addition, 240 fourth-year medical students who also attended symposium lectures received satisfaction surveys in 2019 and 2020.

All (169/169, 100%) students taking the course evaluated it. Overall evaluation scores rose from 8.3/10 to 9.0/10 post-symposia. Among student satisfaction surveys, 89/240 (37%) specifically commented on symposia; 91% (80/89) of those found symposia very or extremely informative. 29/71 (41%) of all residents were able to participate in the symposia, 20/29 in multiple years throughout residency, allowing them to fulfill the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education interpersonal and communication skills core competencies and meet scholarly activity requirements.

Near-peer teaching in the form of resident-taught interactive didactics grouped in symposia can have a positive outcome on medical student satisfaction.