Radiation Exposure: Medical Student Interest and Knowledge in Interventional Radiology After Exposure to a Model Procedure Clinic

i. Purpose To increase medical student awareness and interest in Interventional Radiology (IR) by providing a hands on procedure clinic which allowed students to operate a C-arm, flow model, and innovative IR equipment. ii. Materials and Methods Medical students at the Texas College of Osteopathic Medicine were invited to attend the clinic held in the university anatomy lab. With the help of the anatomy lab personnel, a local radiology technician, and an IR physician; we utilized a C-arm and flow model to simulate acquiring femoral vascular access, and performing catheter skills in navigating vasculature, stroke thrombectomy, and aneurysm coilings. We analyzed IR interest and understanding pre and post the skills lab using a voluntary 11 question 5-point Likert-scale questionnaire. Due to sample size limitations survey results were modified. Strongly disagree, disagree, and undecided were modified to "no" while those who answered agree or strongly agree were modified to "yes" for statistical analysis. iii. Results A total of 12 student's (OMS I - 9, OMS II - 2, OMS III - 1) completed the survey. Following the simulation the cohort of students felt more knowledgeable about the field of IR (33% vs. 75%, P = .041), more interested in pursuing a career in IR (8% vs. 58%, P = .009), better understood the procedures IR physicians perform (25% vs. 75%, P = .014), felt more confident about acquiring vascular access (8% vs. 58%, P = .009), and better understood the role of an IR physician in an interdisciplinary care team (8% vs. 33%, P = .182). iv. Conclusions Overall, the survey results showed that the IR procedure clinic improved student satisfaction following the simulation. Further, this study demonstrated the role of IR procedure clinics in boosting medical student awareness and interest in IR.