Learner Improvement From a Simulation-Enhanced Ultrasonography Curriculum for First-Year Medical Students

Objectives—We describe a simulation-enhanced ultrasonography (US) curriculum for first-year medical students as part of a comprehensive curricular integration of US skills. Our goal was to assess student knowledge and performance of US and determine their satisfaction with the integrated curriculum. Methods—A committee of basic science, clinical, and interinstitutional faculty devel-oped 7 educational US modules integrated into existing anatomy and physiology courses. First-year students in years 2012 through 2014 were administered a demo-graphic survey and a knowledge-based pretest at the outset of the US program and assessed with a posttest, satisfaction survey, and their image acquisition abilities in an objective structured clinical examination with standardized patients on comple-tion of the program. Results—Data from 390 students showed a significant increase in knowledge from the pretest to the posttest [t₍₃₈₉₎ 5 58.027; P < .0001]. Students with higher spatial abilities or some previous US experience performed better on the posttest. The objective structured clinical examination results showed that about 83% of the students were able to capture acceptable or marginally acceptable images. Ninety-five percent of students indicated that the US educational experience enhanced their medical education. Conclusions—Initial results show that we were able to successfully develop, imple-ment, and evaluate performance of first-year medical students on their fundamental knowledge and performance of basic US using a model that emphasized hands-on simulation-enhanced training. Furthermore, most students found the experience to be a beneficial component of their education and indicated a desire for more US training in the medical curricula.