Teaching emergency ultrasound to emergency medicine residents: a scoping review of structured training methods.

BACKGROUND: Over the past 2 decades, emergency ultrasound has become essential to patient care, and is a mandated competency for emergency medicine residency graduation. However, the best evidence regarding emergency ultrasound education in residency training is not known. We performed a scoping review to determine the (1) characteristics and (2) outcomes of published structured training methods, (3) the quality of publications, and (4) the implications for research and training. METHODS: We searched broadly on multiple electronic databases and screened studies from the United States and Canada describing structured emergency ultrasound training methods for emergency medicine residents. We evaluated methodological quality with the Medical Education Research Study Quality Instrument (MERSQI), and qualitatively summarized study and intervention characteristics. RESULTS: A total of 109 studies were selected from 6712 identified publications. Publications mainly reported 1 group pretest-posttest interventions (38%) conducted at a single institution (83%), training in image acquisition (82%) and interpretation (94%) domains with assessment of knowledge (44%) and skill (77%) outcomes, and training in cardiac (18%) or vascular access (15%) applications. Innovative strategies, such as gamification, cadaver models, and hand motion assessment are described. The MERSQI scores of 48 articles ranged from 0 to 15.5 (median, 11.5; interquartile range, 9.6-13.0) out of 18. Low scores reflected the absence of reported valid assessment tools (73%) and higher level outcomes (90%). CONCLUSIONS: Although innovative strategies are illustrated, the overall quality of research could be improved. The use of standardized planning and assessment tools, intentionally mapped to targeted domains and outcomes, might provide valuable formative and summative information to optimize emergency ultrasound research and training.

Barriers to point-of-care ultrasound utilization during cardiac arrest in the emergency department: a regional survey of emergency physicians.

INTRODUCTION: Though point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is recognized as a useful diagnostic and prognostic intervention during cardiac arrest (CA), critics advise caution. The purpose of this survey study was to determine the barriers to POCUS during CA in the Emergency Department (ED). METHODS: Two survey instruments were distributed to emergency medicine (EM) attending and resident physicians at three academic centers in the South Florida. The surveys assessed demographics, experience, proficiency, attitudes and barriers. Descriptive and inferential statistics along with Item Response Theory Logistic Model and the Friedman Test with Wilcoxon Signed Rank tests were used to profile responses and rank barriers. RESULTS: 206 EM physicians were invited to participate in the survey, and 187 (91%) responded. 59% of attending physicians and 47% of resident physicians reported that POCUS is performed in all their cases of CA. 5% of attending physicians and 0% of resident physicians reported never performing POCUS during CA. The top-ranked departmental barrier for attending physicians was "No structured curriculum to educate physicians on POCUS." The top-ranked personal barriers were "I do not feel comfortable with my POCUS skills" and "I do not have sufficient time to dedicate to learning POCUS." The top-ranked barriers for resident physicians were "Time to retrieve and operate the machine" and "Chaotic milieu." CONCLUSIONS: While our study demonstrates that most attending and resident physicians utilize POCUS in CA, barriers to high-quality implementation exist. Top attending physician barriers relate to POCUS education, while the top resident physician barriers relate to logistics and the machines. Interventions to overcome these barriers might lead to optimization of POCUS performance during CA in the ED.