It was only a matter of time. In April 2021, UNC Radiology’s Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) program took its successful virtual journal club (VJC) to the Big Apple!
Throughout the 2020-2021 pandemic, Course Directors of UNC Radiology’s medical student electives saw how the COVID-19 pandemic’s social distancing constraints have impacted the constructs of radiology medical education. To maintain engaging, effective and dynamic training, course directors have turned need into opportunity, and a new era of medical student education has emerged.
The virtual journal club is one of our successful innovations. Available to all on-block medical students from its outset in June 2020, the VJC’s online format enables students and faculty advisors to host engaging critique and appraisal through exploring the latest in published medical developments, evaluating research soundness, and assessing clinical applicability.
VJCs provide ample opportunities for students and faculty to hone research, communication, and teaching skills, all of which meet Liaison Committee on Graduate Education (LCME) core competencies and standards. These skills also prepare medical students for roles they will be taking on as residents. As engaged VJC presenter MS4 Casey Hribar says, “So glad to be a part of this revolutionary block. [UME leadership’s] hard work is not lost on us students — so appreciative and looking forward to paths continuing to cross in the future!”
On April 15, UNC Radiology’s medical student VJC expanded to include Weill Cornell Medicine Department of Radiology in a multi-institutional event. This second UNC-Cornell collaborative UME initiative in 2021 builds upon a collegial relationship between UME leadership at both institutions. In February 2021, Cornell Director of Medical Student Education in Emergency and Musculoskeletal Imaging and well-known radiology educator Dr. Lily Belfi virtually guest-presented to a UNC Radiology audience of students and faculty advisors her online exchange and collaborative forum for radiology educators and learners alike to share web-based, peer-reviewed educational materials.
UNC’s VJC has been highlighted and touted at the national level as well. Its tenets and outcomes have yielded publications in the Journal of the American College of Radiology (JACR) and presentations at the American Roentgen Ray Society (ARRS) Virtual 2021 Annual Meeting in April 2021 and the Association of University Radiologists (AUR) 2021 Annual Meeting (virtual) in May 2021.
PHOTO: Top row – (far L) UNC Department of Radiology UME Director Sheri Jordan, MD / (2nd from far L) Cornell Medicine Department of Radiology Director of Medical Student Education in Emergency and MSK Imaging Lily Belfi, MD / (far R) UNC SOM M4 & former UNC Radiology member Casey Hribar