Education Programs Highlights

The University of Toronto UME has led the way to create a Canadian Coalition of Undergraduate Medical Imaging Directors. The national collective agreed to share  English and French online learning resources across the country, coast to coast. The plan is to create an optimal learning management system to use taking into account general access across different institutions. 

Medical Imaging UME participated in the accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools (CACMS) which resulted in the approval of accreditation for the University of Toronto MD Program for the maximum term of 8 years.

The abdominal/pelvic hands-on session led by Dr. Josee Sarrazin was successfully switched to a virtual platform in 2020 due to the COVID pandemic. This was no small undertaking as the course is usually a popular in-person training with around 260 students over the day, using 10 active stations. The training is scheduled to return to an “in-person” session in 2023 with students from St. George and Mississauga Campuses involved.

Dr. Moreland has been heavily involved in online premedical forums for the last fifteen years and currently manages Canada’s largest online premedical community as he believes that “the equalization of information goes a long way towards equalizing opportunities”.  He is excited about the challenges that lay ahead and added that as the director of undergraduate medical education he will develop a curriculum that encourages medical students interested in radiology to explore the field, develop their skills, and ultimately successfully match to our specialty.

Medical Imaging Content will be increased for Case Based Learning (CBL) for pre-clerkship. This will be in the form of companion cases aimed to teach around the differential diagnoses presented and to teach around other complications of disease. Dr. Moreland has also mapped out other areas of the current undergraduate curriculum where medical imaging is featured and worked on how those parts can be taught by radiologists. The Integrated MAPS (medical imaging, anatomy, pathology, surgery) presentation will be the first pilot session with more planned in the future. 

Successful accreditation review in November 2020 and received the status of full accreditation with follow-up at regular review (in 8 years).

Dr. Fleming’s goal as Program Director was to provide trainees with all the resources and experiences needed in a large variety of areas so that at the end of training residents are confident and competent practitioners who collaborate well with other members of the healthcare team. Under Dr. Fleming’s leadership, the program looked for new and innovative ways to provide a compassionate, supportive and positive environment in education, research, and clinical experience.

The diagnostic radiology residents were an integral part of helping with coverage of fellow residents and faculty affected by COVID. Their efforts were praised by the Radiologist in Chiefs and the Chair of the Department. The group went above and beyond to make sure the departments continued to function during this difficult time.

This newly established committee was developed by the residents. Their mission is to increase awareness of conscious and unconscious biases within the department of medical imaging, to integrate equity, diversity, and inclusion topics into residency program teaching, and to work towards increasing the presence of underrepresented minority groups within the department through mentorship and exposure to medical imaging amongst undergraduate medical trainees from diverse backgrounds.

In response to COVID-19 Academic Half Day curriculum was transitioned to be offered fully online and co-hosted by residents. This change has also been beneficial to faculty presenters as the program is able to provide robust feedback for Quality Improvement to all presenters.

Competence by Design (CBD) has been initiated by The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and uses the principles of competence-based medical education (CBME). Diagnostic Radiology will launch CBD for the incoming PGY1s as of July 1, 2022, providing a multitude of resources for residents and faculty alike to ensure ease of transition.

In July 2020, Nuclear Medicine was the first program in the department to implement the new Competence by Design (CBD) framework on evaluating Trainees in real time. 

The Competence by Design (CBD) based curriculum is divided into four distinct stages of training:

• Transition to Discipline.
• Foundation of Discipline.
• Core of Discipline.
• Transition to Practice.

Within each stage of training, Residents are provided with a list of learning objectives called Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs) and milestones, based on the CanMEDS 2015 framework.

Successful accreditation review in November 2020 and received the status of full accreditation with follow-up at regular review (in 8 years)

In early 2021, a new Nuclear Medicine Trainee Scholarship award was created from a generous donation by alumnus Dr. Kathy Yip in Nuclear Medicine. The Dr. Kathy Yip Award in Nuclear Medicine will be given annually to a newly entering PGY6 resident who demonstrates an enhanced awareness of the nuclear medicine field.

The excellence of the training for this program is demonstrated by a 100% pass rate for the Royal College exams over the past 10 years. Residents are consistently offered positions in highly competitive practices and feedback from their employers is excellent, commending the University of Toronto for producing highly skilled and qualified physicians.

Successful accreditation review in November 2020 and received the status of full accreditation with follow-up at regular review (in 8 years).

In July 2020, Dr. Pejman Maralani and Dr.Birgit Ertl Wagner created and launched a formal Mentorship Program for all Neuroradiology trainees. Interested trainees answered a short questionnaire regarding their lifestyle and future career goals, they were then matched to a faculty member with similar interests.

The program rapidly adapted to the challenges of the global COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 by implementing virtual city-wide rounds and academic half days of didactic teaching without missing a single session of academic half days/rounds.

The Head and Neck Symposium and Annual Physics Symposium also went virtual. Both of the events were hugely successful with great feedback.

Dr. Matylda Machnowska was appointed the new Program Director for the Neuroradiology Program, effective April 1st, 2021. Dr. Machnowska has had extensive involvement in the Neuroradiology program, including participation on the Residency Program Committee as well as serving as the Sunnybrook Health Science Centre site supervisor. She has also been recognized as an outstanding teacher in the Neuroradiology fellowship program. 

In 2021-2022 the Neuroradiology program entered the planning phase of the Competence By Design integration. Dr. Machnowska is working with the Royal College on the groundwork for this to be incorporated.

There was a change in the site coordinator at Toronto Western Hospital in June 2022. Dr. Paula Alcaide-Leon replaces Dr. Ronit Agid. 

Successful accreditation review in November 2020 and received the status of full accreditation with follow-up at regular review (in 8 years).

Competence by Design (CBD) has been initiated by The Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada (RCPSC) and uses the principles of competence-based medical education (CBME). This is a shift from the traditional time-based model to a system focused on the attainment of competence. The Pediatric Radiology Residency is in the initial stages of preparing for the transition.

The program has completed two of the three scheduled CBD transition workshops with the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada. The workshops covered topics such as:

• An introduction to CBD
• Reimaging the scope of the program
• How to draft Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs)
• Developing Assessment Plans

The number of applications for fellowship positions has consistently been high, despite travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic.

It is truly an international fellowship program, attracting applicants from Australia, India, the United Kingdom, South Africa, and Saudi Arabia among others. 

The academic scholarly expectations have been redefined to reflect the current needs of fellows. Many of our fellows return to educational and administrative roles and work on quality improvement initiatives. Research and education are now part of academic scholarly activities. Quality improvement projects were added in 2022.

Dr. Andrea Doria, Vice Chair of Clinical Practice Improvement, drafted the quality improvement project guidelines, and fellows are now offered additional courses/workshops in non-interpretative skills in leadership, quality improvement initiatives, and introduction to statistics. An artificial intelligence course is currently being developed for fellows and junior staff.

In response to the COVID pandemic, the fellowship program started online citywide rounds. In addition to the city-wide musculoskeletal and neuroimaging teaching rounds, a third city-wide fellowship teaching rounds in cardiac imaging was introduced. 

The Cardiac Imaging teaching rounds were accessed through Quercus, a learning management system at the University of Toronto, in 2020. The collaborative lecture series covered 36 topics delivered by staff from all four radiology units in Toronto (JDMI, Sunnybrook Health Sciences, St. Michael's Hospital/Unity Health, and The Hospital for Sick Children). The program helped create a community of learners and teachers throughout the city.

Citywide academic rounds in cardiothoracic and abdominal imaging and in interventional radiology have commenced since 2020 and have seen strong participation from fellows.

The program developed several frequently asked questions (FAQs) and checklists for various aspects of the fellowship program:

• In 2020-2021, two checklists were created for incoming fellows to assist with all the paperwork required and timelines. The checklist provides a more efficient on-boarding process, reducing delays related to their appointment to the university. 
• In 2021-2022, a FAQ document was created to help applicants understand the application and interview process, this created greater ease and transparency for the candidates. 
• The welcome memo to fellows has been updated to clearly outline the certificate requirements for the fellowship program.

• Dr. Adriano Basso Dias (Abdominal Fellow) received the 2022 RSNA Resident/Fellow Roentgen Research Award.

Conference Presentation Awards:

STR 2022

• Dr. Subin Kuruvilla Thomas (Cardiothoracic Fellow) - A Rare Presentation of an Azygos Vein Varix - Society of Thoracic Radiology Cum Laude award for Best Educational exhibit at the Annual Conference. 

RSNA 2021

• Adriano Basso Dias (Abdominal Fellow) - PSMA PET/MR For The Detection And Initial Staging Of Prostate Cancer And Its Impact To Patient Management - Magna Cum Laude.

RSNA 2020

• Dr. Eman Marie (Pediatric Fellow) - Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma Imaging Spectrum in Children, Adolescent and Young Adults Made Crystal Clear - Identified for Radiographics.
• Dr. Eman Marie (Pediatric Fellow) - Imaging of Peritoneal Dialysis Complications in Children Inside-Out - Identified for Radiographics.
• Dr. Sara Zafar (Abdominal Fellow) - Urothelial Lesions, Not Always Urothelial Carcinoma. - Certificate of Merit.
• Dr. Prasaanthan Gopee-Ramanani (Abdominal Fellow) - Renal Neoplasms in the Young: “Same-Same” but Different - Cum Laude award and Identified for Radiographics.
• Dr. Felipe A Sanchez (Cardiothoracic Fellow) - Basic Notions of ECG for Radiologists: Key Concepts and Clinical Scenarios - Magna Cum Laude.

Due to the pandemic, the Visiting Professor program moved to virtual sessions and was open to Faculty, Fellows, and Residents. 

1. Dr. Mukesh Harisinghani (Professor Radiology, Harvard Medical School, Director of Body Translational MRI, Massachusetts General Hospital. - September 10, 2020. 
2. Dr. Tim Leiner - Professor of Radiology - Chair of Cardiovascular Imaging, Utrecht University Medical Center, Utrecht. - October 29, 2020. 
3. Dr. Benjamin Yeh - Professor in Residence -  Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, School of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. -  January 24, 2021. 
4. Professor Frederic Lecouvet, MD, PhD - Associate Chair, Department of Medical Imaging Head, Medical Imaging Research Pole Institut de Recherche Experimentale et Clinique (IREC) Cliniques Universitaires Saint-Luc Brussels, Belgium. - May 6, 2021. 
5. Dr. Dow-Mu Koh, Professor in Functional Cancer Imaging, Consultant Radiologist in Functional Imaging, Royal Marsden Hospital, Sutton, UK. - September 30, 2021.
6. Dr. Carole Dennie, Professor of Radiology, The Ottawa Hospital, University of Ottawa. - January 26, 2022.
7. Dr. Evis Sala, Professor of Oncological Imaging, University of Cambridge. - March 31, 2022.  

1. Toronto Breast Imaging Conference - March 27, 2021.
2. 5th Pediatric IBD Imaging Course 2021 - A Multimodality Approach - April 10, 2021.
3. Toronto Head and Neck Imaging Conference - April 24, 2021.
4. Toronto Emergency Radiology Conference - June 11-12, 2021.
5. 21st Annual Interventional Neuroradiology Symposium (INR) & 6th Annual Karel G.Terbrugge Lectureship & Neurovascular Anatomy Workshop -  September 17-19, 2021.
6. Toronto Breast Imaging Conference - April 23, 2022.

AI and Radiology Webinar - Collaboration with the School of Computing & Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Queen’s University.

• Part 1 – Covid-19, Rapidly Evolving Role of Radiology and AI - September 16, 2020.
• Part 2 – Prerequisites for the Intelligent Use of AI in Medical Imaging/Practical Application of Ai and the Value of Enterprise Imaging - September 23, 2020.

24^th Annual Obstetric Ultrasound (Setting the Standard for 2021 Virtual Sunday Series) Webinar - Collaboration with the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University of Toronto.

• Heart, Genitourinary & Twins - January 31, 2021.
• Thorax & Abdomen & Fetal Well Being - February 28, 2021.
• Face, Head, Neck, and Brain - March 28, 2021.

25^th Annual Obstetric Ultrasound (Advances in Gynaecologic Imaging & First Trimester Ultrasound) Webinar - Collaboration with the Department of Obstetrics & Gynaecology, University of Toronto.

• Ovarian Masses and O-RADS Risk and Management Strategy - January 30, 2022.
• Updates in Uterine and Acute Gynecological Pathology - February 27, 2022.
• First Trimester Ultrasound Focusing on Anatomy, Ectopic Pregnancy, and Screening - March 27, 2022.