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

Abstract Objective The purpose of this project was to develop a formal visual arts training curriculum and evaluate if it improved 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 6-month post-test were administered, each having different images than 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. Results 39 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. There were 9 participants lost to follow-up at six months, and the average 6-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 significant improvement in observational and descriptive skills in first- and second-year medical students when describing radiologic images, which was retained after 6 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.