The Art of Medicine: Applying the Visual Thinking Strategy to Radiology.

The purpose of this project was to develop a formal visual arts training curriculum and evaluate if there was improvement in the observational and descriptive skills of first- and second-year medical students for radiologic images.  Materials and methods: A demographic survey and an initial pre-test of 12 radiologic images were administered asking an open-ended question to describe the image and to identify the abnormality in their own words. Three virtual one-hour sessions of visual thinking strategy (VTS) training occurred, and an immediate post-test and a six-month post-test were administered, each with images different from the pre-test, as well as a final questionnaire. All tests were independently graded by two graders with a previously established grading rubric. Differences in scores were analyzed using paired T-tests. Thirty-nine medical students participated. The mean pre-test score was 62.2 +/- 18.6, and the mean post-test score improved by 41.7 +/- 17.9 points (p<0.01) to an average score of 103.9 +/- 20.4. Nine participants were lost to follow-up at six months, and the average six-month post-test score was 110.2 +/- 29.1 for a mean improvement of 9.3 +/- 13.1 points (p=0.320) from the initial post-test.  Conclusion: There was a significant improvement in observational and descriptive skills in first- and second-year medical students when describing radiologic images, which was retained after six months. A formal VTS curriculum could play a beneficial role in medical student and radiology training programs not only to improve observational skills but also to address perceptual errors in diagnostic imaging.

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Human subjects: Consent was obtained or waived by all participants in this study. Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) Institutional Review Board (IRB) issued approval Pro00086970. Animal subjects: All authors have confirmed that this study did not involve animal subjects or tissue. Conflicts of interest: In compliance with the ICMJE uniform disclosure form, all authors declare the following: Payment/services info: This study was funded by an internal MUSC Scholars of Humanities and Arts Research and Education (SHARE) Grant. . Financial relationships: All authors have declared that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. Other relationships: All authors have declared that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work.