Effectiveness of Ultrasound Cardiovascular Images in Teaching Anatomy: A Pilot Study of an Eight-Hour Training Exposure.

Mariam Haji-Hassan,Tudor Drugan,Sorana D Bolboacă,Tudor Călinici

doi:10.3390/ijerph19053033

Abstract

The present study aimed to evaluate the students’ progress in evaluating ultrasound (US) and cadaveric cardiac images and long-time retention of information. First-year medical students were invited to participate in four two-hour online lectures during one week voluntarily. The students were trained to recognize cardiovascular anatomical structures on US and cadaveric images during the intervention. The participants’ abilities to identify specific anatomical structures were tested before, immediately after and six months after the training. A group of second-year students without US training participated as a control group and filled the same test once. Ninety-one first-year students agreed to participate, and forty-nine completed all three tests. The performances in the correct identification of cardiovascular structures on the US images significantly improved after the training but significantly decreased after six months. In the intervention group, the accurate identification of cardiovascular structures was significantly higher on cadaveric images (80% vs. 53%, p-value < 0.0001, n = 91 at post-training; 70% vs. 33%, p-value < 0.0001, n = 49 at 6 months after training). The correct answers percentage score in the control group varied from 6.7% to 66.7% for US cardiovascular anatomical without a significant difference than the intervention group (p-value = 0.7651). First-year students’ knowledge of heart US anatomy proved less effective than cadaveric images, significantly improved after training and decreased over time, indicating the need for repetition reinforcement.

Highlights

Received: 9 February 2022Ultrasound examination has become widely used by most medical specialties [1].not all medical schools have integrated ultrasound (US) training into their curricula [2]
Fifty second-year students agreed to participate in the evaluation intervention group
Fifty second-year students agreed to participate in the evaluation of the standard cardiovascular anatomy cadaveric of their theirknowledge knowledgeone oneyear yearafter afterreceiving receiving the standard cardiovascular anatomy cadavtraining

Summary

Introduction

Not all medical schools have integrated ultrasound (US) training into their curricula [2]. It is usual to start teaching US to students during clinical years, some studies promote the idea that preclinical years are more appropriate to understand anatomy and physiology [3,4]. The use of US in learning anatomy had at least two advantages: move the student’s visual understanding from 2D (cadaveric images) to 3D (real-time imaging of a living patient) and provide skills in being able to scan a patient that would be useful in clinical practice [7]. One constant among the heterogeneous literature is the students’ reaction to the US training. They have consistent positive responses to such training and are more likely to incorporate US in their future medical practice [8,9]. Researchers support the idea that US imagery is as effective as cadaver

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Discussion

Conclusion