Development and Evaluation of Resident-Championed Point-of-Care Ultrasound Curriculum for Internal Medicine Residents

Abstract

Introduction: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is a powerful clinical tool that has seen widespread adoption, including in Internal Medicine (IM), yet standardized curricula designed by trained faculty are scant. To address the demand for POCUS education at our institution, we created a resident-championed curriculum with support from skilled faculty across multiple specialties. Our objective was to teach postgraduate year (PGY)-3 IM residents the basics of POCUS for evaluation of the pulmonary, cardiac, and abdominal systems through resident-developed workshops. The goal of acquisition of these skills was for resident education and to inform decisions to pursue further patient testing. Methods: Three half-day workshops were created to teach residents how to obtain and interpret ultrasound images of the pulmonary, cardiac, and abdominal systems. Workshops were comprised of didactic teaching and practical ultrasound instruction with expert supervision of clinicians within and outside of IM. Residents were asked to complete a written survey before and after each workshop to assess confidence, knowledge, and likelihood of future POCUS use. Results: Across the three workshops (pulmonary, cardiac, and abdominal), 66 sets of pre- and post-workshop surveys (32 pulmonary, 25 cardiac, and 9 abdominal) were obtained and analyzed. Confidence in and knowledge regarding POCUS use increased significantly across all three workshops. Likelihood of future use increased in the cardiac workshop. Conclusions: We implemented a resident-championed POCUS curriculum that led to improved attitudes and increased knowledge of POCUS for PGY-3 IM residents.

Keywords

• point-of-care ultrasound
• POCUS
• curriculum development
• resident championed
• assessment