Our results,
summarized in Figures 1 and 2,
demonstrate some shortcomings in medical students and radiology residents knowledge of radiation protection that may be considered in redefining both their curriculum.
Given a score of 1 for each correct answer and a score of 0 for incorrect or missing answers,
the total mean score was 4.8 and 5.8 out of 7 for medical students and radiology residents,
respectively.
Interestingly,
although medical students show a poorer knowledge compared to residents,
94.4% of them assessed to have awareness of radiation protection and 88.7% of them stated to have attended radiation protection courses on a regular basis.
On the contrary,
only half of the residents state to have at least a good level of knowledge,
and more than half claimed to have rarely or never attended radiation protection courses.
Probably,
once medical students graduate and become residents they start the radiology activity,
thus realising that their radiation protection knowledge gained during undergraduate studies is limited.
Both medical students and radiology residents lack clear understanding of the concepts related to appropiateness and optimization criteria,
as about 20% of them did not know that all professionals (not only radiologists) are considered legally responsible when radiological examinations are not properly performed.
Despite a superior performance,
the knowledge of radiology residents leaves room for improvement as well.
For instance,
it is disappointing the fact that only about 62.7% of residents know that leukemia is the result of stochastic damage and that 13.6% of them believe that radiation risk is independent of gender and age.
Both medical students and,
even more so,
radiology residents must be provided with appropriate training to ensure that they are aware of radiation risks and know how to prescribe radiological examinations adopting all procedures useful to minimize unnecessary radiation dose.
Our results emphasise the need of improving education of future and present doctors in this critical domain.
Further studies are required to carefully design a specific radiation safety training program,
considering that it is an essential part of a general safety culture.