Can Limited Education of Lung Ultrasound Be Conducted to Medical Students Properly? A Pilot Study

Abstract

Objectives. Lung ultrasonography (LUS) is a useful examination to identify lung problems. Unfortunately, there are currently no LUS educational programs for medical students. We designed a brief LUS training course for medical students during the ED rotation. The purpose of training was improving cognitive and psychomotor learning domains, knowledge of ultrasound, knowledge of LUS, image acquisition, and image interpretation. Methods. Forty students in their fourth year of medical school were enrolled in this study. Student achievement was evaluated through examinations of cognitive and psychomotor skills. A survey was administered following the training. Results. The average test result was 42.1 ± 13.7 before training and 82.6 ± 10.7 after training. With respect to the assessment of LUS performance, the acceptable rates for right and left anterior chest wall scanning and right and left posterolateral scanning were 95%, 97.5%, 92.5%, and 100%, respectively. The students felt a high level of confidence in their ability to administer LUS to patients after training and they agreed that inclusion of LUS training in the medical school curriculum is necessary. Conclusion. This study showed that, among the medical students without ultrasound experience, limited LUS education to improve their knowledge, image acquisition, and interpretation ability was successful.

Evaluation of chest ultrasound integrated teaching of respiratory system physiology to medical students

“…Only a few previous papers have shown a possible association between ultrasound-based seminars and performance at exams, even with several limitations. Lim et al (13) suggested that limited exposition of medical students to the ultrasound technique could improve their performances, and also Bell et al (3) reported similar results in cardiac physiology teaching. In our experience, all of the questions reviewed by the expert board were pertinent to the syllabus and to the UIL, and 90% of students said that they found the UIL pertinent to the syllabus.…”

Development of a deep learning classifier to accurately distinguish COVID-19 from look-a-like pathology on lung ultrasound

“…23,28,29 Automating the detection of canonical findings of LUS, these techniques are convenient and serve to achieve what clinicians may be trained to do with minimal training. 30 With attention to COVID-19, LUS has been shown to inform clinical course and outcome 31 , creating some further momentum toward broader LUS competence. As our work opens the door toward plausible early, automated COVID identification using LUS, DL techniques to auto-generate clinical severity score for COVID has also recently been described.…”

Comparisons of two diaphragm ultrasound-teaching programs: a multicenter randomized controlled educational study

“…Beaulieu et al, an initial web-based theoretical program followed by hands-on training performed by simulation and on both healthy and sick individuals, improved the ability of 37 junior emergency medicine residents to recognize both venous vessels (5.5 h) and pleura (2.5 h) [13]. Lim et al showed that a 3-h educational course of lung ultrasound, combining 1 h of theory and 2 h of hands-on training on healthy subjects, significantly improved 40 medical students’ knowledge, image acquisition, and interpretation [14]. Melamed et al administered a 2-h theoretical instruction on transthoracic echocardiography followed by a 4-h hands’ training on critically ill patients with (20 patients) or without (24 patients) left ventricular abnormalities, to previously untrained ICU physicians [15].…”