“How do you teach something that is so ubiquitous that we often take it for granted despite studies continuing to show that we’re not very good at it?” says Eric J Keller (Delaney Radiology and University of North Carolina, Wilmington, USA) describing the conception of a new, first-of-its-kind consent curriculum for interventional radiology (IR)—iCONSENT. Focused on “elevating relationships between patients and physicians”, Keller speaks to Interventional News on the recent launch of the curriculum and plans for specialty-wide rollout.
Keller explains that iCONSENT was conceived by their team at The Interventional Initiative (The II), a not-for-profit organisation assigned to raising awareness of and access to minimally invasive imaged-guided procedures. The II was founded in 2015 to help increase public awareness of minimally invasive imaged-guided procedures and created infographics and an ongoing docuseries called ‘Without a Scalpel’.
“We later realised that raising public awareness was only half of the equation and we needed to create resources to help clinicians connect with patients as well. For as much as we talk about how we need to evolve as a specialty and become ‘clinical IR’, we don’t have a shared definition of what that is, and we certainly don’t have a standardised way of teaching it,” Keller explains.
“We were doing that for a while when we realised that there’s no standardised curriculum for teaching people how have these conversations well. No specialty-specific discussions of consent, on how to have difficult conversations or deal with complications,” Keller says. In response, their team created a six-module curriculum, iCONSENT. Keller details that each module combines practical advice with artwork and videos to elevate one’s understanding of each topic.
“For example, module two is about who consents. This covers topics such as determining competency versus capacity, who to select as an appropriate surrogate decision maker, and what qualifies for presumed (‘emergent’) consent,” he states. The module features a short story by the late physician and poet William Carlos William. He wrote about his practice during an era throughout which diphtheria was rife. “It’s a short story about him having to force open a young girl’s mouth to see the diphtheria in the back of her throat, he felt he had to do this against her will, even though her parents were consenting, she was fighting him,” Keller describes.
“Each piece of artwork is meant to take people a little outside their comfort zones and encourage people to think on a deeper level about a topic. This shocking story is meant to stimulate reflection on the line you straddle as a physician, between paternalism and respecting that the patient is the expert in themselves,” says Keller.
The iCONSENT curriculum had its initial launch in August 2025 at University of California San Diego, with 20 participants from the USA, UK, and Poland. Participants were asked to give feedback on the curriculum and participate in an ongoing study to see whether it statistically improves standardised measures of shared decision making, empathy and burnout immediately after completing the curriculum, as well as three months later.
“Our hypothesis is that not only can better shared decision making be taught, but that better connecting with your patients may improve empathy and reduce burnout, which is a major issue in IR as well as medicine in general,” Keller details. He says that the results so far show improvements in shared decision making but that the three-month data will assess whether the effects last and whether there is a delayed positive effect on burnout and empathy.
“As we evolve and mature as a specialty, it becomes increasingly important to practice what we preach. The future of IR is not only dependent upon honing procedural skills but also what we do outside the fluoroscopy suite. It’s those skills and interactions that tend to have a greater impact on patients’ and referring clinicians’ perceptions of the quality of care we provide. Yet, those ‘soft’ skills are often overlooked as something not needing dedicated training and finesse,” Keller explains.
