SIR has recently launched Residency Essentials, a 2-year, self-paced online training and education program for residents that covers the breadth of interventional radiology education in one curriculum. Created to provide universal, consistent curriculum, Residency Essentials provides program directors with high-quality, ready-to-go IR education modules and offers IR residents a program designed to increase success on certification exams and enhance education.
Residency Essentials is a two-year, self-paced online training and education program for residents that delivers uniform, high-quality education cover the breadth of IR in one curriculum. Learn more at at bit.ly/2OBcgH3
The program is comprised of 78 educational modules that cover key topics for IRs, including clinical, fundamental and requisite knowledge topics.
• On July 1, 45 clinical modules on disease-specific training will launch, designed for residents in PGY 5–7 years.
• In fall 2020, 4 requisite knowledge modules will be available on business and law, systems and system-based practice, physician wellness and development, and research and statistics. These programs can be accessed at any time.
• The 29 fundamentals modules will also be available in fall 2020. This additional module, designed to be a pre-requisite, is intended for residents in PGY 2–4 years and covers clinical medicine, intensive care medicine, image-guided interventions and imaging, and anatomy.
The Residency Essentials program was developed by APDIR members and subject matter experts and designed to fulfill Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) guidelines. It provides IR residents with well-rounded knowledge, from the essentials of clinical IR care to disease-specific treatments, research fundamentals, and the business and economics of medicine.
The Residency Essentials program offers value to both IR fellows and program directors seeking comprehensive and accessible curriculum.
For more information on the Residency Essentials program, visit sirweb.org/learning-center/residency-essentials.
Resident benefits
David Duncan, MD, IR Residency Curriculum Advisory Committee member and PGY-5 integrated interventional radiology resident, UC San Diego Health
Residency Essentials is an amazing initiative that will be warmly welcomed by residents across the country. Trainees often discuss and compare their hospital atmospheres, their didactic educations and their procedure logs. This initiative will make one of these topics nearly obsolete. The Residency Essentials delivers the most up-to-date, effective and comprehensive didactic curriculum using a succinct, purposeful design.
After reviewing some modules, I’ve learned an immense amount even after having had 4 years of diagnostic and interventional radiology training. Topics to which trainees have had limited exposure, such as stroke and pediatric interventions, are especially educational as they potentially provide the only opportunity to build a strong clinical framework and knowledge base.
The pace of the Residency Essentials, a module every two weeks, also seems reasonable given the anticipated workload of integrated and independent IR residents in their final 2 years of training. This is an important concept as Residency Essentials complements the didactics and hands-on education of the trainee’s own training institute while minimizing its interference with the day-to-day caseload. I am excited for the release of the entire curriculum, as I’m sure there will be something I can learn from each and every module while in my last year of training.
Program director benefits
Jeffrey L. Weinstein, MD, FSIR, Residency Essentials Module Development Workgroup chair and instructor of radiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
As a program director, I value the dimension that Residency Essentials adds to my curriculum for my integrated and independent IR residents. They get professionally curated modules, organized into a problem-based, 2-year curriculum that includes the best and most relevant of the SIR digital video library, JVIR, Seminars in Interventional Radiology and Techniques in Vascular and Interventional Radiology content. The Residency Essentials system also administers the Clinical Practice modules in a paced fashion over the two-year curriculum, so I don’t have to worry about sending out articles every two weeks. As a bonus, I can track student progress, unlike the “recommended reading” list of articles I used to circulate to fellows. I can also track their performance on pre- and posttest questions, which lets me know which topics they are clearly grasping and what areas I may want to reinforce.
Over the course of more than 400 questions, I expect to get a sense of whether each trainee’s clinical performance is in sync with their medical knowledge. I’m interested to see how this additional, individualized information facilitates my feedback and evaluation process. Separately, I think the Fundamentals modules will help my more junior residents get ready for the ICU rotation and brush up on their clinical medicine and anatomy, and explore noninterpretive skills like basic statistics and business and law—all of which lifts a big burden of having to find the time and resources to cover such topics. I think this platform will prepare my trainees for incorporating online learning and test taking into their study habits, which is likely to be part of the maintenance of certification and continuing medical education process in their future careers as interventional radiologists.
