Hospital Wide Point of Care Ultrasound Committee as an Instructional Resource for the Medical Student Curriculum

A primary challenge in integrating medical student ultrasound education through the clinical experience is the relative novelty of this discipline and the lack of experience with Point of Care Ultrasound among hospital... [ view full abstract ]

A primary challenge in integrating medical student ultrasound education through the clinical experience is the relative novelty of this discipline and the lack of experience with Point of Care Ultrasound among hospital physician staff. Students may be frustrated by a lack of opportunity to use their ultrasound skills during their clinical rotations as a result of a lack of willingness among supervising faculty to participate in a diagnostic approach that is novel to them.

We have had moderate success in identifying supervising faulty from a wide variety of disciplines through the development of a hospital wide Point of Care Ultrasound Committee. The committee serves to identify system wide opportunities for practice improvement, to make recommendations to administrators on ultrasound workflow and equipment, and to develop ultrasound programs among the various hospital service lines.

In developing our year 3 medical student ultrasound curriculum we identified core faculty in several target rotations to host an ultrasound learning component. Our goal for these units was for the teaching faculty to be from the hosting department and not to rely on the ultrasound curriculum faculty to directly teach these modules for the year 3 students. Through discussions in the POCUS committee we were able to identify teaching faculty with POCUS experience and a desire to teach for 80% of the teaching modules.

To date many integrated ultrasound curricula rely on a core group of teaching faculty, often from a single hospital department, to develop and deliver the ultrasound instructional content to students. A recognized drawback to this approach is a real or perceived lack of clinical instructors and supervision once the students begin their clinical experiences. In our institution the Point of Care Ultrasound Committee has been an excellent tool for connecting students to faculty supervisors and has reduced the direct workload for the ultrasound curriculum faculty.