Remote, Synchronous, Hands-On Ultrasound Education

Abstract

Background: Ultrasound has become a major diagnostic tool in many parts of the world, with broad clinical applications. Ultrasound provides a noninvasive, painless mode of diagnostics that produces instant results. Disseminating ultrasound skills to remote and rural communities has become a challenge for many medical schools, particularly those where distances are great and the density of population is low. Materials and Methods: The University of California, Irvine School of Medicine and the University of New England School of Rural Medicine in Australia piloted the use of dual video feeds in two scenarios: (1) to display the instructor's ultrasound feed and the instructor's transducer placement to provide guidance for remote students; and (2) to display side-by-side views of the instructor's and the remote student's ultrasound feeds to allow the instructor to guide the remote student in his or her transducer placement. Results and Conclusions: Using high-speed broadband connections, the two schools demonstrated the feasibility of remote, synchronous, practical, and hands-on ultrasound training and instruction over international distances. This opens up a broad range of possibilities for future remote ultrasound education.

A Hybrid Musculoskeletal Ultrasound Curriculum for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Residents—a Multi-center Pilot Program

“…Although pre-recorded videos, webinars, textbooks, and guidelines can aid self-directed learning, hands-on, in-person training has been demonstrated to be superior for skill acquisition [ 24 , 43 ]. Furthermore, real-time feedback from an expert sonographer can facilitate the process of achieving competency in MSKUS [ 44 – 47 ].…”

“…Another major limitation is that during virtual supervision, faculty exclusively provided verbal feedback and did not utilize screen-sharing to further demonstrate techniques/transducer positioning for image acquisition or optimization. Although Winn et al demonstrated that two-way, synchronous, remote learning is a reasonable method for US learning, it comes at a cost of significant technical limitations [ 47 ]. With the proposed virtual platform in the present study, learners were forced to incorporate verbal and somatosensory feedback, which may be more effective in psychomotor skill development [ 58 , 59 ].…”

Educational Effect of Remote Lectures for Students Aiming to Become Radiologic Technologists: Questionnaire on Nuclear Medicine Examinations

“…This study dealt with technology related to nuclear medicine examinations; in the future, we aim to assess the educational effect of remote lectures in other subject areas. In one investigation, medical students conducted hands-on training for ultrasonic examinations remotely (10). In our department, we are planning to use remote learning for hands-on training for nuclear medicine examinations; thus, we intend to continue investigating the usefulness of such learning.…”

New Media Platforms for Teaching and Networking: Emerging Global Opportunities for Breast Surgeons

“…Surgical education has embraced a variety of digital tools which enable real-time discussions and advice, live presentations, archived educational content, and rapid dissemination of manuscripts, including preprint versions during COVID. Studies have shown that "webbased teaching platforms for residents and medical students are equally as effective as in-person teaching modalities in various situations," including simulated patient encounters, ultrasound training, and procedural training [8][9][10][11][12]. In breast surgery, an innovative web-based platform that helped surgeons to practice virtually for breast surgical skills is Virtual Breast Oncoplastic Surgical Simulator (VBOSS) [13].…”