Teaching About Ethics, Fraud, and Professionalism Through Imaging: Reflections and Recommendations for Practice

This chapter presents a framework for using the teaching of biomedical imaging to build graduate attributes. Graduate attributes are used worldwide to describe the qualities and skills universities want their students to gain alongside their core subject knowledge. There is no universal definition, so the University of Aberdeen’s (the author’s home institute) is used here. This has four areas: academic excellence, critical thinking and effective communication, learning and professional development, and active citizenship. Academic excellence is linked to rigor and recordkeeping at each step, understanding image acquisition (for biomedical scientists, this would include microscopes or MRI scanners), how images are stored (including degradation from “lossy” file formats such as JPG), and how to process images during analysis (which could apply to both biomedical and computer scientists). Active citizenship is taught through raising awareness of the range of confidential data in image files and how to handle this. Image fraud and research malpractice are unfortunately relatively widespread, though students may not be aware of this. The importance of integrity while editing images is highlighted, and the work of image sleuths. This emphasizes critical thinking when reading the literature. While critical thinking is a widely taught topic, teaching about medical imaging can be a good time to highlight how to approach advanced technological approaches such as artificial intelligence (AI), which biomedical scientists would not generally expect specific training in during their degrees but are now widely used. Tools and resources are suggested to support teaching and give students a strong foundation for critically appraising research as technology develops. I also recommend explicitly discussing graduate attributes during teaching as explicit awareness may enhance student’s employability by being able to demonstrate and talk about these attributes clearly.