Near-Peer Mentoring Pilot in Nuclear Medicine

Introduction: Radiology and nuclear medicine (NM) resident read-out practices changed during COVID, with emphasis on virtual read-outs and backreads. Some COVID-era practices persist today with unclear effects on our learners. Even before COVID, radiology and nuclear medicine trainees often worked independently, followed by one-on-one sessions with their attendings, missing the team-based structure of medicine predominantly practiced in other specialties. This training-in-isolation may affect radiology and NM trainees' sense of belonging within their department and their overall professional identity development. By not working in a team, our trainees may also be missing educational opportunities afforded to their colleagues in other specialties. We instituted a near-peer mentorship pilot program on our academic NM service to create a sense of camaraderie between NM trainees, to empower senior trainees to take a leadership role with their juniors on service, and to enhance learning opportunities for all trainees on the service.

Methods: Starting in November 2023, all incoming first year radiology residents (R1s) and their assigned seniors (R3s-fellows) received weekly emails from the Director of Resident Education in NM, welcoming them to the NM service and detailing the pilot program. Every day seniors were asked to review a "must-see case" with their juniors. These cases were curated by week to match the topics of that week's recommended reading assignments in the R1 NM curriculum. Each case had a set of questions for the mentorship pair to review together. Both the junior and senior trainee were given access to the questions and answers at the beginning of the week. Juniors were instructed to utilize this time to best fit with their learning style - they could read the answers beforehand and then review with their senior on service or they could go in "blind," trying to answer the questions for the first time with their senior. This activity was clearly delineated as a safe learning space - the senior in no way reported back to faculty about how the junior performed during these sessions. It was also emphasized that clinical work should always be a priority and that days could be skipped as needed to allow for optimal clinical work and patient care.

Results: Four R1s have begun or completed the pilot program with mentorship by 10 seniors so far. The program is in its last pilot month before program assessment. Planned assessment includes an IRB-approved, voluntary short quantitative survey with some open ended questions. Additionally, IRB-approved, voluntary focus groups will be led by a faculty member from a different division, collecting qualitative data from trainees including their overall opinions of the program as well as, when compared to their experiences on other services, whether the program affected their learning and sense of belonging on service. The focus groups will be recorded, qualitative data transcribed, and coded for thematic analysis. This data collection and analysis will begin in February and be completed well before the summer SNMMI meeting.

Conclusions: This near-peer mentorship program in Nuclear Medicine is the first of its kind at our academic institution. This single, simple intervention has the potential to optimize learning and support a sense of belonging in our trainees. If successful, the structure of this program can be adopted in NM divisions at other institutions, as well as in non-NM divisions in our own institution. Example questions and answers will be included in the exhibit and the entirety of the curriculum will be willingly shared with others if requested.