Educational leaders in IM view point-of-care ultrasound as a valuable tool in diagnosis and procedures, and many residency programs are teaching these skills to their learners.

The findings suggest that internal medicine residents use UpToDate most frequently, followed by consultation with faculty and the search engines Google and Google Scholar; speed, trust, and portability are the biggest drivers for resource selection; and time and information overload appear to be the biggest barriers to resources such as Ovid MEDLINE. Residents frequently used Google and may benefit from further training in information management skills.

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.