Development and evaluation of a brief educational cartoon on trainee clinicians’ awareness of risks of ionising-radiation exposure: a feasibility pre-post intervention study of a novel educational tool to promote patient safety

Thurley, Peter; Bowker, Richard; Bhatti, Imran; Skelly, Rob; Law, Russ; Salaman, Rachel; Young, Ben; Fogarty, Andrew

Abstract

Background Over recent decades, CT scans have become routinely available and are used in both acute medical and outpatient environments. However, there is a small increase in the risk of adverse consequences, including an increase in the risk of both malignancy and cataracts. Clinicians are often unaware of these facts, and this represents a challenge for medical educators in England, where almost 5 million CT scans are done annually. New whiteboard methodologies permit development of innovative educational tools that are efficient and scalable in communicating simple educational messages that promote patient safety. Methods A short educational whiteboard cartoon was developed to explore the prior observation that adolescents under the care of paediatricians had a much lower risk of receiving a CT scan than those under the care of clinicians who care for adults. This explored the risks after receiving a CT scan and strategies that can be used to avoid them. The educational cartoon was piloted on new doctors who were attending induction training at a busy teaching hospital. Results The main output was the educational whiteboard cartoon itself. Before the new medical trainees' induction, 56% (25/45) had received no formal training in radiation awareness, and this decreased to 26% (6/23) after the exposure to the educational cartoon (p=0.02). At baseline, 60% (27/45) of respondents considered that young females were at highest risk from exposure to ionising radiation, and this increased to 87% (20/23) after exposure to the educational cartoon (p=0.06). Conclusions This proof-of-concept feasibility study demonstrates that whiteboard cartoons provide a novel and feasible approach to efficiently promote patient safety issues, where a short succinct message is often appropriate.

Citation

Thurley, P., Bowker, R., Bhatti, I., Skelly, R., Law, R., Salaman, R., …Fogarty, A. (2020). Development and evaluation of a brief educational cartoon on trainee clinicians’ awareness of risks of ionising-radiation exposure: a feasibility pre-post intervention study of a novel educational tool to promote patient safety. BMJ Open Quality, 9(4), Article e000900. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2019-000900

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 6, 2020
• Online Publication Date: Nov 27, 2020
• Publication Date: Nov 27, 2020
• Deposit Date: Nov 27, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 27, 2020
• Journal: BMJ Open Quality
• Print ISSN: 2399-6641
• Electronic ISSN: 2399-6641
• Publisher: BMJ Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 4
• Article Number: e000900
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjoq-2019-000900
• Keywords: medical education; radiation; patient safety; cartoon; whiteboard
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/5072855
• Publisher URL: https://bmjopenquality.bmj.com/content/9/4/e000900