Training Surgical Residents for Ultrasound-Guided Assessment and Management of Unstable Patients

Objective: Proficiency in the use of ultrasound is presently not an ACGME required core competency for accredited surgical training. There should be a basic unified ultrasound curriculum for surgical trainees. We developed a multimodal ultrasound-training program to ensure baseline proficiency and readiness for clinical performance without impacting trainee duty hours.

Design: We developed and implemented a multimodal curriculum for ultrasound education and its use as a supplement to clinical evaluation of unstable patients.

Setting: A single-center study was completed in a hospital setting.

Participants: Post-graduate year-1 surgical residents at our institution were invited to participate in a multimodal perioperative course.

Results: 51 residents attended the course over the three sessions. The vignette exam as a whole demonstrated a Cronbach's alpha of 0.819 indicating good internal reliability of the entire test. There was significant improvement in their knowledge in clinical vignettes (55% ± 12.4 on pre-test vs. 83% ± 13.2% on post-test, p<0.001).

Conclusion: It is feasible to incorporate a focused ultrasound curriculum to assess clinically unstable patients. The multimodal nature of the course aid in the development of preclinical proficiency and decreased the orientation phase of ultrasound use.