Chest CT findings of early and progressive phase COVID-19 infection from a US patient.

The SARS-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19), originally reported in Wuhan, China, has rapidly proliferated throughout several continents and the first case in the United States was reported on January 19, 2020. According to the ACR guidelines issued shortly after this disease was declared a pandemic, radiologists are expected to familiarize themselves with the CT appearance of COVID-19 infection in order to be able to identify specific findings of this entity. This case report discusses the relevant imaging findings of one of the first cases in the mid-western United States. It involves a 60-year-old man who presented with fever, dyspnea, and cough for 1 week and subsequently tested positive for COVID-19. The utility of the noncontrast CT chest in the diagnosis of COVID-19 has been controversial, but there are specific imaging findings that have been increasingly associated with this virus in the appropriate clinical context. The stages of imaging findings in COVID-19 are considered along with the implications of fibrosis throughout the stages. Future considerations include using artificial intelligence algorithms to distinguish between community acquired pneumonias and COVID-19 infection.

Ultrasonography in preclinical education: a pilot study.

CONTEXT: Ultrasonography is a valuable diagnostic tool in the clinical setting. Yet, medical students often have minimal familiarity with this technology. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the ability of second-year medical students to use ultrasonography for identification of anatomic structures and pathologic conditions. DESIGN: A self-directed approach that reduced facilitator involvement, encouraging learning that mimicked the medical school's problem-based learning pathway program. METHODS: Five students were each given 10 hours of instruction in ultrasonographic techniques by three certified ultrasonographers in outpatient and hospital settings. Each student performed 40 hours of organ-specific ultrasonographic scans on another student in 2-hour sessions during 20 weeks. Images were archived for future evaluation and quality rating. Students took a 35-question posttraining examination with 10 contrived case scenarios. Questions were designed to test student knowledge in three categories: anatomic structure, technical skill, and clinical diagnosis. RESULTS: Posttraining examination results, expressed as the percent of correct answers for all five participants by category, were as follows: anatomic structure, 70%; technical skill, 70%; clinical diagnosis, 68%. Evaluations of the archived images, which were graded for proper anatomic identification and image clarity, yielded the following scores indicating "good" or "fair" quality for each anatomic region: abdominal, 80%; pelvic, 63%; cardiac, 73%. CONCLUSION: Second-year osteopathic medical students can attain a sufficient degree of proficiency in limited ultrasonographic technique.