A Quick Guide to Writing a Teaching Case Study

Abstract

Case studies published in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology are brief chronologic or logical descriptions of a clinical experience that aim to share a technical outcome associated with an instrumentation or patient care scenario or demonstrate a unique finding associated with a nuclear medicine procedure. Although brief by necessity, case studies provide enough relevant detail to educate the reader about a clinical condition coupled with a diagnostic or therapeutic procedure. Case studies do not have to be about bizarre clinical conditions. Case studies can be about quality issues that directly impact the imaging or therapeutic procedure, protocol modifications when a clinical scenario requires out-of-the-box decisions, new techniques developed to address unique or difficult situations, or something as simple as an artifact that resulted in an unusual image finding. The sections of a case study, including the introduction, case report, discussion, and conclusion, are explained. The goal of this article is to teach new authors how to write a teaching case study.