Academic Medicine Open Forum

 View Only

  • 1.  Point of Care Ultrasound

    Posted 06-07-2021 08:47:00 AM
    I have been tasked with adding point of care ultrasound training for our medical students across all 4 years, and I was trying to find out if there is any direction from AAMC for best practices or requirements for POCUS in UME? Is there a rubric of what the students should be learning, or is it mostly institution by institution of what the students are required to learn? Thanks!

    ------------------------------
    James Wilcox, MD, FAAFP, RMSK
    Indiana University School of Medicine
    ------------------------------


  • 2.  RE: Point of Care Ultrasound

    Posted 06-14-2021 11:45:00 AM
    Dear Dr.Wilcox, I have a series of documents that describe ways to develop a POCUS curriculum. Starting it depends on many factors like time allocation, available faculty, and equipment availability. We started in the first year. Anatomy is the perfect spot to start the curriculum. Depending on if your curriculum is integrated into the first two years, you can have anatomy as the vehicle to teach and expose students to ultrasound. If your school has the budget, you can get Sonosim, to guide the students on learning the cognitive skills and the anatomy lab should give the time for the psychomotor skills. The issue is the 3rd year, you would need to have the clerkships on board to allow scanning time. We were able to have surgery to get the students a few hours to do eFAST, but depending on your situation, you need to have champions in IM, ONGYN, and others to have continuity during the 3rd year. The 4th year is easy, you have to develop an elective, have the curriculum committee open a course that needs to be taken during the 4th year. A one or two weeks will be great. Here is the caveat, the limiting factor is the faculty, so here is what I am trying to do. You need to start a POCUS program that will train your future facilitators. Med students learn fast and well, and they will be the teachers for your 1rst and 2nd-year students. they will have a 4th-year course that is that will give them time to teach their peers. Maybe the school should open such a program as a certificate. Feel free to contact me at lopez@usf.edu

    ------------------------------
    Hector Lopez
    Associate Professor
    USF Health Morsani College of Medicine
    ------------------------------

    Original Message