Thera-what?! A guide to nuclear medicine medical student education
“Do you know what the field of ‘Theranostics’ is?”
I was a fourth-year medical student who had just submitted my Diagnostic Radiology residency applications. I had done all the things an applicant was supposed to do: lead the Radiology Interest Group, start a radiology medical education program for first year medical students, perform research, shadow all the subspecialties, dabble with the prospect of IR, and get excited listening in on the inter-provider banter surrounding mysterious cases. Yet I found myself sitting in the Nuclear Medicine reading room shaking my head.
No. I had never heard of Theranostics. It wasn’t on our USMLE boards, no radiologists had lectured to the medical students about the topic, and I never saw the reference in any patient charts on the clinical wards.
The provider went on to explain the breadth of Nuclear Medicine. How within Theranostics, the patient care is circumferential, starting with the diagnosis of disease, leading to clinic visits, disease targeted intervention, and ending in follow up. The provider explained to me the financial implications of this ever-popularizing trend in practice. I don’t know the number, but it was significant.
Medical student education regarding radiology has been a long-established difficulty in the field, however it remains critical to institute. Medical students are future residents, who are future attendings, who are then future healthcare leaders and influencers. Ill-equipping future leaders in healthcare with knowledge pertaining to the diagnosis and treatment of disease is antithetical to the practice of medicine and the primary goal of medical education.
Early exposure to the field of radiology has been identified as one of the key solutions to this problem; early exposure has been proven to improve students’ impression of radiology and increase interest in radiology as a career.1 It has also been established that the most preferable method of teaching radiology is live instruction.2 When compared to web-based medical student radiology curriculum, students greatly prefer live instruction despite the ease of use of web-based tools for administrators.2 Therefore, exposing students to fields of medicine they are not routinely exposed to, such as Nuclear Medicine and Theranostics, is proven to be efficacious and necessary.
In-person introductory lectures aimed at increasing student understand of the field only cost one hour of a provider’s time, are administratively easy to coordinate, and importantly, at our institution, have demonstrated student interest. An introductory lecture entitled “Nuclear Medicine, Theranostics, and Clinical Radiology” was offered to 84 students who participate in a radiology certificate program at our institution. At the time of this article, 72 of the 84 participants signed up for the one- hour lecture, indicating an interest on the student’s behalf in learning about this field.
Improving the prominence of radiology in medical education will promote the usage of more accurate diagnostic imaging modalities, improve referral relationships between future radiologists and clinicians, and improve patient care. Radiology is cornerstone in the practice of clinical medicine3, thus it is the responsibility of leaders in the field to educate medical students in all aspects of the specialty, including Nuclear Medicine.
Works Cited:
- Branstetter IV, Barton , et al. « Preclinical medical student training in radiology: the effect of early exposure. » American Journal of Roentgenology 188.1 (2007): W9-W14.
- Chew, Felix S., and Annemarie Relyea-Chew. « Distributed Web-supported radiology clerkship for the required clinical clerkship year of medical school: development, implementation, and evaluation. » Academic radiology 6 (2002): 713-720.
- Squire LF, Novelline Radiology should be a required part of the medical school curriculum. Radiology 1985; 156:243–244.
