Evaluating the Effectiveness of Ultrasound Education

Bedside ultrasound has become a highly utilized minimally invasive imaging technique that shows a wide array of practical uses across a diverse set of medical fields. As the use of ultrasound continues to expand in the medical... [ view full abstract ]

Bedside ultrasound has become a highly utilized minimally invasive imaging technique that shows a wide array of practical uses across a diverse set of medical fields. As the use of ultrasound continues to expand in the medical world, there is an increasing need for effective educational methods in order to teach medical students the skills necessary to fully utilize this tool. Medical school curricula are already rigorous and nearly saturated as far as volume of material, and require a maximally efficient use of time and resources. Recent studies have shown that despite a wide consensus that including ultrasound as part of the medical curriculum is important, the integration of ultrasound into curriculum is highly variable and is in need of national standards. We aim to determine when during a student’s progress in medical school would be the most ideal and practical period of time to include ultrasound training. We will teach ultrasound to Swiss medical students, who make ideal subjects due to their lack of prior ultrasound experience — as ultrasound is completely absent from their medical school curriculum. Students will be stratified by year of school and take a two-day long ultrasound workshop teaching the FAST, pulmonary, gallbladder, and cardiac exams. At the end of the program, we will evaluate their ultrasound abilities in order to determine which group was able to master the skills most effectively. This project is ongoing and results will be available by the World Conference date, but not by the abstract submission deadline.