Psychological Safety as a New ACGME Requirement: A Comprehensive All-in-One Guide to Radiology Residency Programs

Women in academic radiology: Barriers and benefits of representation, mentorship, coaching, and advocacy

Gender diversity contributes to creativity and collective intelligence in the workplace. Women bring a unique perspective to the practice of medicine; however, there is a persistent underrepresentation of women in the field of radiology. Female radiologists face distinct challenges associated with underrepresentation and significant gender disparities. There are several obstacles contributing to women's underrepresentation in radiology, including suboptimal exposure to radiology during training, misconceptions about the field of radiology, the impact of social media, and a lack of women in leadership positions. Additional factors leading to widening the gender gap were also discussed, such as a lack of role models and mentors, unconscious biases, and other societal barriers, including but not limited to childbearing, lactation, and family-building. This review article emphasizes the value of representation, mentorship, coaching, and advocacy to address the current status of women in radiology. It also explores the challenges and strategies to promote a gender-diverse radiology practice essential to the future of radiology and medicine.

Association between a healthy lifestyle and the prevalence of depression in radiology residents in China: findings from a nationwide survey

OBJECTIVE

The relationship between a healthy lifestyle and depression in radiology residents remains poorly understood. This study aims to investigate the relationship between a healthy lifestyle and depressive symptoms in radiology residents in a nationwide survey.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING

The survey was conducted among radiology residents undergoing training in China between December 2020 and April 2021. This encompassed a total of 215 municipalities and 406 training centres.

PARTICIPANTS

3677 radiology residents in 31 provinces of China.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY OUTCOME MEASURES

The primary outcome was Healthy Lifestyle Score (HLS). A multiple logistic regression analysis was performed to evaluate the association between lifestyle factors and depressive symptoms. Additionally, the weighted quantile sum (WQS) index was utilised to identify the lifestyle factor that had the greatest impact on depressive symptoms.

RESULTS

The study sample consisted of 3677 participants, among whom the prevalence of depression was 34.7%. Participants were categorised based on their Health Lifestyle Score (HLS) into three groups: low HLS (LHLS), moderate HLS (MHLS) and high HLS (HHLS), with proportions of 8.0%, 79.8% and 12.2%, respectively. Those with LHLS were found to have a significantly higher risk of depression (OR: 5.21, 95% CI: 3.72 to 7.30) and a more severe level of depression (p for trend<0.001) compared with those with HHLS. Furthermore, the Well-being Quality of Life Index (WQS) showed a significant association with depression (OR: 0.34, 95% CI: 0.28 to 0.40), with sleep being identified as the most significant factor contributing to a healthy lifestyle.

CONCLUSION

The study establishes a significant association between an LHLS (long and irregular work hours) and an elevated risk of depressive symptoms among the participants, emphasising the crucial role of sleep in this relationship. These findings underline the importance of promoting a healthy lifestyle, specifically emphasising the need for adequate sleep, among radiology residents.

Rewinding the Clock: Preparing the Next Generation of Radiology Residents for Oral Boards

The replacement of the ABR in-person oral examination with the DR certifying examination affected approximately 15,000 radiologists, spanning from 2013 to 2027. This decision was motivated by better aligning with the timing of other American Board of Medical Specialty (ABMS) members, more closely reflecting real-world practice of radiology and narrowing training geared towards the trainee's subspecialty preference. However, in retrospect, this change may have subtracted from the quality and value of diagnostic radiology training as a whole with the de-emphasis on competence in general radiology, communication skills, and cognitive reasoning. In this paper, the authors lay out a blueprint necessary in order to rewind the clock of how diagnostic radiology programs can prepare their trainees for the new DR oral examination. Such a change will require substantial redactions affecting all designations, including radiology faculty, education teams, departmental leadership, academic institutions, ACGME, and ABR. The authors believe that implementing these modifications will not only effectively equip radiology candidates for the new DR oral examination but will also augment the significance of radiologists as indispensable members of multidisciplinary teams. The authors also outline the challenges that could emerge from these changes and speculate on the anticipated role of AI in future oral board examinations.

Overcoming walls and voids: Responsive practices that enable frontline workers to feel heard

BACKGROUND

There is increasing recognition that beyond frontline workers' ability to speak up, their feeling heard is also vital, both for improving work processes and reducing burnout. However, little is known about the conditions under which frontline workers feel heard.

PURPOSE

This inductive qualitative study identifies barriers and facilitators to feeling heard among nurses in hospitals.

METHODOLOGY

We conducted in-depth semistructured interviews with registered nurses, nurse managers, and nurse practitioners across four hospitals ( N = 24) in a U.S. health system between July 2021 and March 2022. We coded with the aim of developing new theory, generating initial codes by studying fragments of data (lines and segments), examining and refining codes across transcripts, and finally engaging in focused coding across all data collected.

FINDINGS

Frontline nurses who spoke up confronted two types of challenges that prevented feeling heard: (a) walls, which describe organizational barriers that lead ideas to be rejected outright (e.g., empty solicitation), and (b) voids, which describe organizational gaps that lead ideas to be lost in the system (e.g., structural mazes). We identified categories of responsive practices that promoted feeling heard over walls (boundary framing, unscripting, priority enhancing) and voids (procedural transparency, identifying a navigator). These practices appeared more effective when conducted collectively over time.

CONCLUSION

Both walls and voids can prevent frontline workers from feeling heard, and these barriers may call for distinct managerial practices to address them. Future efforts to measure responsive practices and explore them in broader samples are needed.

PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS

Encouraging responsive practices may help ensure that frontline health care workers feel heard.

Psychological Safety: What It Is, Why Teams Need It, and How to Make It Flourish

In health care, transforming individuals with diverse skills into an effective, cohesive team is fundamental to delivering and advancing patient care. All teams, however, are not created the same. Psychological safety has emerged as a critical feature of high-performing teams across many industries, including health care. It facilitates patient safety, quality improvement, learning, and innovation. This review presents an overview of psychological safety in medicine, describing its impact on learning, patient safety, and quality improvement. The review also explores interventions and essential leadership behaviors that foster psychological safety in teams.