Audiovisual content for Radiology Fellowship selection process, A pilot study using online questionnaires with smartphones in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background Traditional radiology fellowships are usually one or two year clinical trainings in a specific area after completion of a four-year residency. Objective Our purpose was to investigate the experience of fellowship applicants in answering radiology questions in an audiovisual format, using their own smartphones after answering radiology questions in a traditional printed text format as part of the application process during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Our hypothesis is that fellowship applicants would find that recorded audiovisual radiology content adds value to the conventional selection process, may increase engagement by using their own smartphone device, and also facilitate understanding of imaging findings of radiology-based questions, while maintaining social distancing. Methods One senior staff radiologist of each subspecialty prepared 4 audiovisual radiology questions for each subspecialty. We conducted a survey using online questionnaires for 123 fellowship applications for musculoskeletal (39), internal medicine (61) and neuroradiology (23) programs to evaluate the experience of using audiovisual radiology content as a substitute for the conventional text evaluation. Results The great majority of the applicants (99%) answered positively (agree or strongly agree) that images in digital forms have superior quality than printed in paper. Eighty-two percent of the applicants agreed with the statement that the presentation of the cases in audiovisual format facilitates the understanding of the findings. Also, most of the candidates agreed or strongly agreed that answering digital forms is more practical than conventional paper forms (65%). Conclusions Use of audiovisual content as part of the selection process for radiology fellowships is a new approach to evaluate the potential to enhance the applicant's experience during this process. This technology also allows for the evaluation of candidates without the necessity of in-person interactions. Further studies could streamline these methods in order to minimize work redundancy with traditional text tests or even evaluate the acceptance of using only audiovisual content using smartphones.