Abstract
Background:Ultrasound education has been provided to students in medical schools within and beyond the United States. A formal experiment with use of personal handheld ultrasound equipment by all first-year medical students has not been reported. Employing insonation (an application of ultrasound) at the personal leisure by medical school freshmen enables self-directed learning throughout the academic year.Methods:We describe a peer-led ultrasound curriculum with handheld devices. The students’ perceptions were gathered through quarterly Likert-style questionnaires, and the differences in the categories were tested using Analysis of Variance.Results:The response rate was 58.5% for the first survey (n = 32), 56% (n = 30) for the second survey, and 62.3% (n = 33) for the final survey, respectively, with an average response rate of 58.9%. At the baseline survey, overall agreement was observed for enhancement on performance (62.5%) and interpretation (56.3) of ultrasounds, understanding (68.8%) and learning of anatomy (61.3%), ease (78.1%), comfort (59.4%) and benefit of incorporation of insonation in the medical school curricula (all p-values < 0.001). Neutral response (38.7%) or disagreement (38.7%) was observed when assessing the effect of the integration in medical curriculum on specialty choice (p < 0.01). These trends remained constant over follow-up with the exception that the perceived benefit for integration of insonation into the longitudinal curricula (p < 0.05) increased significantly over time. Majority of disagreement was observed regarding current access to the personal ultrasound devices (38.7%) (p < 0.001).Conclusions:The introduction of insonation through personal handheld ultrasound devices in the first-year medical school curriculum was received enthusiastically by students, with the majority of respondents finding the devices both easy to use and a valuable aid to improving their understanding of the three-dimensional anatomy.
Highlights
Medical school curricula across the United States have witnessed an increase in ultrasound education over the past decade [1, 2]
The need to prepare physicians adequately for such technological advances has been a concern for the medical education programs, various surveys have confirmed that teaching medical students to use handheld ultrasound is feasible, increases traditional physical examination skills [4] and helps improve diagnostic accuracy [5]
Quantitative analyses Of the 3 surveys sent to the medical students over a period of twelve months, the response rate was 58.5% (n = 32) the first survey, 56% (n = 30) for the second survey, and 62.3% (n = 33) for the final survey, respectively, with an average response rate of 58.9%
Summary
Medical school curricula across the United States have witnessed an increase in ultrasound education over the past decade [1, 2]. Neutral response (38.7%) or disagreement (38.7%) was observed when assessing the effect of the integration in medical curriculum on specialty choice (p < 0.01) These trends remained constant over followup with the exception that the perceived benefit for integration of insonation into the longitudinal curricula (p < 0.05) increased significantly over time. Conclusions: The introduction of insonation through personal handheld ultrasound devices in the first-year medical school curriculum was received enthusiastically by students, with the majority of respondents finding the devices both easy to use and a valuable aid to improving their understanding of the three-dimensional anatomy
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