Assessment of EFAST training for final year medical students in emergency medicine clerkship

Abstract

BackgroundExtended Focused Assessment Sonography for Trauma (EFAST) is an important bedside tool for the management of multiple trauma patients. We aimed to evaluate the assessment of our EFAST education in the Emergency Medicine Clerkship (EMC) for final year medical students and the correlations of EFAST marks with other practical skill stations and the final multiple choice question (MCQ) exam marks.MethodsFifty-four final year medical students were trained on performing EFAST on human models during their 4-week clerkship. Students received an hour of didactic lecture, 4-hours practical sessions on human models, and completed a minimum of three EFAST examinations on trauma patients. Finally, the EFAST performance was evaluated on human models using a standard evaluation form during an Objective Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE). The marks of 51 students who completed the final exam were analyzed.ResultsThe overall passing rate of the EFAST station was 88% (n: 45). EFAST station mark had significant weak correlations with other OSCE stations marks (p = 0.027, rho = 0.31), and with the final EMC mark (p = 0.032, rho = 0.3), but not with the final MCQ exam.ConclusionsFinal year medical students demonstrated effective EFAST learning as measured by their examination performance. One hour EFAST training and 4 -hours practice provide an acceptable level of skill for medical students. The EFAST final marks showed significant weak correlation with other OSCE station marks and final clerkship marks, but not with the final MCQ exam mark which assesses a different cognitive learning domain.

Point-of-care Ultrasound Training During an Emergency Medicine Clerkship: A Prospective Study

“…Less time was needed to train on the EFAST than on the RUSH protocol, with training for one hour on EFAST effectively improving both performance and interpretation [19]. We recently reported that hands-on performance was acceptable in 88% of medical students after five hours of training, including one hour of didactic training, two hours of practical training with an instructor, and two hours of free practice [10]. The current study found that only three hours of instructor-led EFAST training was sufficient to increase knowledge significantly.…”

“…Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is regarded as important [1][2][3][4], with increasing numbers of medical schools integrating ultrasound training into their undergraduate curricula [5][6][7]. Ultrasound training, once only taught in residency programs or sporadically to medical students, is now included in the teaching of undergraduate students [7][8][9][10]. However, despite the consensus that ultrasound training should be part of undergraduate training, no agreements have been reached on the length of time required for training or on its content and delivery methods [5][6][11][12].…”

“…Although emergency medicine (EM) pioneered the integration of ultrasound into clerkship curricula [10,[15][16], most EM clerkship curricula include little structured POCUS training [17]. Time constraints limit the integration of ultrasound training into undergraduate medical education [5,18].…”

“…This limitation has been overcome by the effective implementation of ultrasound teaching into training courses [13,17,[19][20]. Our recent study showed that senior medical students can effectively learn and implement the Extended Focused Assessment Sonography for Trauma (EFAST) protocol after three hours of instructor-led training [10]. To our knowledge, however, no study to date has assessed the effectiveness of incorporating Rapid Ultrasound in Shock and Hypotension (RUSH) training into EM clerkships.…”

Diagnostic point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) for gastrointestinal pathology: state of the art from basics to advanced

“…Therefore, implementing POCUS training in medical programs including medical schools is spreading [ 72 ]. We are actually advocates of POCUS training for all our undergraduate medical students because we think it will become the stethoscope of the future [ 73 ].…”