title: Pulmonary embolism teaching file: a simple pilot study for rapidly increasing pulmonary embolism recognition among new residents using interactive cross-sectional imaging.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Chest radiographs can be demanding, making this an area of focus during most first-year resident chest rotations. This often comes at a cost of cross-sectional imaging, and new residents are often not initially comfortable with reading chest computed tomographic angiograms (CTAs) for pulmonary embolisms (PEs). We created a teaching file of CTAs to improve the detection of PEs.
  
  
  METHODS
  For initial testing, we used videos of 25 cases, which played for 90 seconds (to allow multiple passes) to residents with and without call experience. The presence and location of PEs and the readers' confidence scores were recorded. After initial testing, first-year residents without call experience were given 20 separate known positive CTA videos to scroll through on their own. The goal of this was to allow for individual review and development of individual search strategies. A second testing was done with all levels of residents with the same initial 25 cases, re-randomized to evaluate for improvement.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Initially, first-year residents without call experience identified an average of 14.7 of 18 examinations positive for PEs (versus 15.8 for more senior residents; P < .04). After reviewing the 20 known positive cases, the first-year residents improved, averaging 16.6 (versus 14.7 earlier; P < .01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We created a fast, simple way to expose novice residents to CTA examinations and increase their accuracy in identifying PEs. After using a teaching file, the ability to recognize PEs improved significantly, and scores were no longer significantly different from those of residents with call experience.
authors.affiliation: University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine, Iowa City, IA, USA.
authors.forename: Jamie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Takashi Shawn
authors.initials: TS
authors.lastname: Sato
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Policeni
mesh_terms: D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004521:Educational Measurement; D006801:Humans; D007396:Internship and Residency / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D007484:Iowa; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011871:Radiology / Q000193:education* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011873:Radiology Information Systems; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed / Q000379:methods*; D014584:User-Computer Interface
keywords: Teaching file; education; pulmonary embolisms