Feasibility and Acceptability of a Structured Curriculum in Teaching Procedural and Basic Diagnostic Ultrasound Skills to Internal Medicine Residents

Overview

Journal J Grad Med Educ

Date 2014 Jan 10

PMID 24404316

Citations 25

Authors

Daniel J Schnobrich

Andrew P J Olson

Alain Broccard

Alisa Duran-Nelson

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound has emerged as a powerful diagnostic tool and is also being increasingly used by clinicians to guide procedures. Many current and future internists desire training, yet no formal, multiple-application, program-wide teaching interventions have been described.

Intervention: We describe a structured 30-hour ultrasound training course in diagnostic and procedural ultrasound implemented during intern orientation. Internal medicine interns learned basic ultrasound physics and machine skills; focused cardiac, great vessel, pulmonary, and abdominal ultrasound diagnostic examinations; and procedural applications.

Results: In postcourse testing, learners demonstrated the ability to acquire images, had significantly increased knowledge scores (P < .001), and demonstrated good performance on practical scenarios designed to test abilities in image acquisition, interpretation, and incorporation into medical decision making. In the postcourse survey, learners strongly agreed (4.6 of 5.0) that ultrasound skills would be valuable during residency and in their careers.

Conclusions: A structured ultrasound course can increase knowledge and can result in learners who have skills in image acquisition, interpretation, and integration in management. Future work will focus on refining and improving these skills to allow these learners to be entrusted with the use of ultrasound independently for patient care decisions.

Citing Articles

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Developing and Evaluating a Remote Quality Assurance System for Point-of-Care Ultrasound for an Internal Medicine Residency Global Health Track.

Fox S, Fleshner M, Flanagan C, Robertson T, Fujita A, Bhamidipati D POCUS J. 2023; 5(2):46-54.

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The Master Clinician's Elective: Integrating Evidence-Based Physical Examination and Point of Care Ultrasonography in Modern Clinical Medicine.

Frank M, Pierce C, Northcutt N, Keach J, Salame G, Allyn R POCUS J. 2023; 5(1):13-19.

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Development and Evaluation of Resident-Championed Point-of-Care Ultrasound Curriculum for Internal Medicine Residents.

Haghighat L, Israel H, Jordan E, Bernstein E, Varghese M, Cherry B POCUS J. 2023; 6(2):103-108.

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A prospective randomized study to compare standard versus intensive training strategies on long-term improvement in critical care ultrasonography proficiency.

Suzuki R, Kanai M, Oya K, Harada Y, Horie R, Sekiguchi H BMC Med Educ. 2022; 22(1):732.

PMID: 36280812 PMC: 9594969. DOI: 10.1186/s12909-022-03780-2.

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