[Co-operative Learning In Clinical Radiology (CLICR): introducing a novel teaching concept in radiology in the context of competence-oriented curricula]

Introduction: Medical curricula are currently being reformed in order to establish interactive and case-based teaching concepts. Here we present a novel radiological course combining several innovative training components and report our initial experience with its practical implementation and the students' evaluation of it.

Methods: A novel longitudinal radiological teaching course was established, integrated with the medical curriculum and evaluated systematically. Radiology case vignettes were created for three clinical teaching modules. Using a PC with PACS access, web-based databases and CASUS cases, a problem-oriented, case-based, and independent way of learning was implemented, which served as a complementary form of teaching to established radiology courses and lectures.

Results: In student evaluations the novel CLICR course fared significantly better than the conventional radiology block course. More than 50% of the participating students gave the highest rating for 'overall satisfaction' with the novel CLICR course compared to only 3% for 'overall satisfaction' with the conventional block course. A similar trend was observed for the other endpoints. Both the innovative interactive concept of the course and the opportunity to use a web-based database has been favourably accepted by students.

Conclusion: An interactive, case-based teaching concept like the presented CLICR course, and web-based databases appear to be useful extensions to the radiology course programme.