Public engagement – the final frontier for ultrasound imaging
Professor Carmel Moran, University of Edinburgh
Background
Research councils and medical charities actively encourage accessible dissemination of research findings to the general public. To enable this, an ultrasound-based outreach programme was co-created by researchers at the University of Edinburgh with local physics teachers. The outreach programme was aimed at school-aged young people and utilised handheld wireless ultrasound scanners (https://ballatermedical.com/) to scan test objects made in-house. The aims of the outreach programme were two-fold: first, to demonstrate results from ongoing ultrasound research undertaken at the University of Edinburgh, and second, to promote discussion on the use of animals in medical research.
Methods
One professor, three post-doctoral researchers and five PhD students delivered ultrasound-based outreach activities to 158 young people in schools and cubs/guides. The demonstrators completed an evaluation before and after each outreach event describing how enjoyable they found presenting the activity and grading (0–5) how comfortable they felt about talking about the use of animals in research. The young people were encouraged to ultrasonically scan the test objects while the demonstrators explained how ultrasound scanners worked while also discussing the use of animals in medical research. The young people were asked to write down how they felt about the use of animals in medical research and the teachers fed back on how enjoyable the young people found the activity.
Results
Almost all young people engaged with the outreach activity, with over 90% willing to scan the test objects and over 70% engaging with the discussion on animal research. Across all age groups, 80 pupils (65%) were broadly supportive, 29 (23%) conflicted and 15 (12%) were against the use of animals in medical research. All demonstrators enjoyed undertaking the outreach activities and discussing the use of ultrasound in their own research. Even after one outreach activity, the scores of demonstrators had improved by at least one grade-point when describing their confidence in discussing animal research.