Development and implementation of a comprehensive ultrasound curriculum for undergraduate medical students – a feasibility study

Abstract

Background Ultrasound is one of the most important imaging techniques in clinical medicine with unique advantages. Skills in ultrasound imaging are very usefull for physicians including novices and thus also mandated by the Task Force “National Competence-Based Learning Objectives for Undergraduate Medical Education” (NKLM) in Germany and as well as by the German Ultrasound Society (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Ultraschall in der Medizin, DEGUM). Since ultrasound is best learned hands-on in very small supervised groups, we developed and implemented a comprehensive ultrasound-curriculum for all undergraduate medical students of our faculty using a peer-teaching concept. Methods We used Kern‘s six-step model of curricular development comprising (1) problem identification and general needs assessment, (2) needs assessment of the targeted learners, (3) goals and objectives, (4) educational stategies, (5) implementation, and (6) evaluation and feedback. Results The developed curriculum covers basic ultrasound of the abdomen and the throat, eFAST (Extended Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma), lung-ultrasound, FEEL (Focused Echocardiography in Emergency Life Support) and compression duplex sonography of the thigh deep vein system. All 5th year medical students receive a 90 min lecture on ultrasound basics by a faculty member and then a 12.5 h hands-on course divided into three sessions with one student tutor for every 4 students. The students are provided with a script (PDF-File) that covers all the learning goals, including example images of pathologies. The student tutors are trained during a 1 week ultrasound course and a 21-day rotation through seven different ultrasound laboratories. In addition, they undergo a standardized 1.5 day didactical training. Prior to the implementation for all students, the overall course was tested on 27 volunteer students. These students rated (on a 6-point Likert scale from 1 = excellent to 6 = very poor) the satisfaction with the student tutors and the faculty members as 1.4 ± .9 (mean ± stddev) and 1.3 ± .5 respectively. Conclusion A comprehensive ultrasound curriculum for all undergraduate medical students using a peer-teaching concept is feasible. Further studies are needed to evaluate in detail the learning outcomes for students and student tutors.

Video-based, student tutor- versus faculty staff-led ultrasound course for medical students – a prospective randomized study

“…Peer-teaching and reciprocally peer-assisted learning has the potential to improve both the student teacher and learner academic knowledge and interpersonal skills acquisition that can be applied in future clinical situations and is increasingly recognized as a core professional ability across all (health) professional disciplines [15,16]. Peerteaching has previously been shown to be as effective as faculty members to teach basic and even advanced point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) including Extended Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma (eFAST), lung-ultrasound and Focused Echocardiography in Emergency Life Support (FEEL) [17][18][19][20][21]. The initiative "sono4students" has become the largest ultrasound peer-teaching platform in Germany [22].…”

Ultrasound Curricula of Student Education in Europe: Summary of the Experience

“…The added value and the teaching quality of student tutors in ultrasound education have not been well investigated scientifically thus far. However, as has been shown for other fields of medical education [27,28], data suggest that results of peer-assisted ultrasound learning in undergraduate medical education may be equal to that of traditional faculty teaching [11,[29][30][31][32]. Teach-the-teacher curricula should be developed, with the aim of optimizing student tutor-based training.…”

“…Over the last several years, EFSUMB 1 2 and WFUMB 3 as well as several other publications have addressed the issue of student training in ultrasound 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 and promote ultrasound as an educational tool that should be used in the modern teaching of medicine.…”

Efectividad de un programa de alta resolución ambulatoria gracias al uso de la Ecografía Urológica

“…Como técnica de imagen, la ecografía tiene una serie de características únicas: portátil, no radioactiva, poco costosa, se puede repetir múltiples veces y muestra la imagen en tiempo real. 6 Precisamente por esos motivos, es una técnica de imagen que se está utilizando cada vez con mayor asiduidad en las consultas de AR. Ejemplo de ello lo tendríamos en el estudio de Jones K y col., 7 en el que a un total de 93 mujeres que acudieron por un sangrado anormal uterino se les practicó una ecografía transvaginal, logrando diagnosticar a un 89,2% en una única visita.…”