Medical Student Perspectives: Seeing Radiology Through the Patient Lens
By practicing radiology using the patient’s perspective as a guide, medical students can foster a more compassionate and patient-centered approach to this specialty.
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Joshua Leaston, MD
Radiology often operates behind the scenes in patient care, providing crucial insights that guide treatment decisions. Yet, for medical students, it can seem like an abstract specialty, disconnected from the anxiety and emotional realities that patients face. While diagnostic radiology is primarily focused on diagnosing disease for better patient outcomes, it also plays a vital role in helping patients and families understand the images that shape their care. By approaching radiology with the patient’s perspective in mind, students can deepen their understanding of the human stories behind the scans.
The Patient’s Perspective
For patients and families, imaging can feel like a mysterious and intimidating process. The coldness of the machine and the technical jargon in reports can alienate them during what is often one of the most vulnerable moments in their care journey. This is especially true for families waiting for answers, where every delay in results can feel like an eternity.
Beyond the wait itself, the psychological burden of undergoing imaging can be significant — patients may feel a loss of control over their own health as they lie inside an MRI or CT scanner, relying on technology and physicians they may never meet to determine their diagnosis. Anxiety can also stem from past experiences — someone who previously received bad news from a scan may experience heightened fear every time they undergo imaging, even before results are available. Understanding this emotional toll can help medical students develop a greater sense of empathy, ensuring that imaging is not just a clinical process but a human experience. That begins the moment a scan becomes necessary and doesn’t end until the patient fully understands what it means for their health and future.
Studies suggest that students are more likely to retain information and appreciate its significance when it is tied to real-life cases.
Storytelling in Radiology Education
One of the most effective ways to humanize diagnostic radiology is through storytelling. Pairing imaging findings with patient narratives provides context, helping students understand the real-world implications of their interpretations. A solitary kidney, for example, is not just an anatomical variant — it may be a defining part of a patient’s medical history, one that impacts their health outcome inprofound ways.
Data supports the power of narrative in medical education. Studies suggest that students are more likely to retain information and appreciate its significance when it is tied to real-life cases. By framing radiology education around patient-centered stories, educators can create more engaging and memorable learning experiences.
A Medical Student’s Role
Medical students play a unique role in connecting radiology to patient care by explaining findings to patients, advocating for further imaging to clarify a diagnosis or simply recognizing the emotional weight of imaging results. This establishes an essential link between diagnostic radiologists and their patients — developing the skills to communicate imaging results in an accurate and compassionate manner can enhance both clinical training and patient trust.
Medical students learning radiology often focus on identifying abnormalities or perfecting their interpretation skills. However, understanding the patient’s perspective — their uncertainty, their need for clear explanations, and their emotional investment in the outcomes — can add a vital layer of depth to students’ radiology education and patient impact. With an increasing percentage of patients accessing radiology reports through electronic health records, diagnostic radiologists and students alike must learn to bridge the gap between technical accuracy and patient understanding.
Actionable Steps for Radiology Education
Integrating the patient’s perspective into radiology education could be further supported through strategies such as:
Case-Based Learning & Narrative Integration: Using real patient stories alongside imaging to highlight the human impact of radiology findings and incorporate storytelling into lectures and discussions to make radiology more relatable and engaging.
Patient-Communication Training: Teaching medical students how to explain imaging findings in a clear and accessible manner for patients and their families.
Patient-centered healthcare delivery has become increasingly established as a cornerstone of quality medical care, but teaching these principles is often difficult and ineffective in a traditional lecture format. The ACR Communication Curriculum offers a novel educational system using simulation, assessment tools and actual patient scenarios and patient letters to provide practice and to facilitate discussion of key principles of patient-centered care and provide.
Diagnostic radiology is not just about identifying pathologies — it is about understanding the lives shaped by those diagnoses. By practicing radiology using the patient’s perspective as a guide, medical students can foster a more compassionate and patient-centered approach to this ubiquitous specialty. By recognizing the human element in radiology, we ensure that radiology serves as a bridge between technology and humanity.
By Joshua Leaston, MD, student with scholarly concentration in bioengineering/neuroscience, behavior and cognition (expected graduation spring 2025)