Is ULTRASOUND in your curriculum?

[double elle]

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Just wondering if any you have ultrasound as part of your curriculum. Many docs are pushing for bedside ultrasound being an extension of the physical examination and are teaching it to residents and med students. Does your school have any sort of program for this??

 

[Critical Mass]

Extension of the PE? Like if somebody presents with a headache, I get to start smearing jelly on his head? Please explain.

 

[DarksideAllstar]

No formal teaching of US (only CTs, MRIs, and XRs). The only ultrasound teaching we get is when we order one on a patient (ie surg consult). I rotated through Rads and they felt that aside from gallbags it was essentially pointless to try and teach what they spend many months learning.

 

[satcool]

Wayne State University School of Medicine has implemented ultrasound in its curriculum starting in 2006. Have heard that this year's first year class will continue to be taught ultrasound through the preclinical and clinical years as well.

 

[stoic]

At KU we got a little bit of U/S mixed in with anatomy and clinical skills, but not much. We didn't use the machines at all and honestly I'm not that comfortable trying to interpret an U/S. way less than say a CXR.

 

[Darjeeling]

Only marginally related but cool: I shadowed a doc in Ecuador who did obgyn ultasounds. The way I learned to sex a fetus was by determining if the genital area was "hamburguesa" (hamburger, meaning female) or "tortuga" (turtle, meaning male). I know they do this in the US too, but it was more fun in Spanish. If a mother didn't want to know the sex we could talk about the little hamburguesa or the little tortuga... 🙂
Sorry for the minor hijacking.

 

[EM_Rebuilder]

I dont think most of us med student gets the best grasp on CTs and plain films during school..... both of which are much more important that U/S as far as grass roots goes.

I think U/S is important, but again its very dependent on what field you are going into. Like many other things in medical school, if your field or your interests permits wanting to know more about something, then spend free time learning about it. U/S is an increasingly important tool in Emergency Medicine...I knew that, and thus spent much time getting out of something else to go play with the U/S machine. Anytime we had a trauma patient or about any patient in the ED while I was on Surgery, I would ask if I could stick back and U/S them. I never once was told no that I can recall, I got to learn a bit more about the machine, and I missed out on more than one scrub opportunity (which was a plus to me). I did two weeks of OB U/S fourth year...just hanging out with techs, but I did learn a fair amount.

 

[double elle]

Extension of the PE? Like if somebody presents with a headache, I get to start smearing jelly on his head? Please explain.

I'm referring to point-of-care ultrasound. This month's issue of Critical Care Medicine had their entire supplement dedicated to bedside ultrasound in critically ill patients...line placement, left ventricular function (not an entire echo). It's a great supplement. One of the articles in there talks about the push for it being an extension of a physical examination in the office - an extra ten minutes to assess LV function, for example. I know Australia has been doing this for a while because so many of their docs are so remote - and the images are teleraded to a radiologist to read.

I googled 'ultrasound and medical school' and got a lot of hits that they've studied how fast med students can learn basic ultrasound for echo. GE even sponsored an entire curriculum at one of the Carolina med schools...cant remember if it's north or south.

You'd have to read the supplement, because I can't explain it all...I just attended a critical care ultrasound course in Orlando put on by Chest and was amazed at what you can do with the handheld ultrasound models (we used the sonosites at the course). When I found so many hits that schools have actually studied putting ultrasound into their curriculums, I just wondered if anyone had experience with it and how it was incorporated into the 4 years of med school (with anatomy? part of radiology?, etc..)

I'm not talking about OB/Gyn ultrasounds...just lung, limited echo, ultrasound-guided line placement, and diagnosis of DVT. We also learned basic renal ultrasound, as well as bladder ultrasound to evaluate for obstructive uropathy. Of course, this is all very clinical and specific to each patient - and I am mostly interested in the critical care aspect of all this... And I can't remember all the examples I came across with respect to physical examination skills, I just remember thinking it's probably something that is going to head towards standard in the next 5-10 years and wondered if any schools have started heading that way. Just curious.

Some of the things I came across:

http://www.acponline.org/journals/news/may07/ultrasound.htm"]

http://www.leaonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15328015tlm1901_4?cookieSet=1

http://www.medicalimagingmag.com/issues/articles/2007-02_05.asp

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=15684785&dopt=Abstract

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=12356490&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_DocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=12848870&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=15325951&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_DocSum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=15746716&query_hl=5&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=16164888&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=16188532&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=16839380&query_hl=7&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/..._uids=17330994&query_hl=2&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=16179619

http://uscnews.sc.edu/RSRC302.html

 

[deleted50541]

Buffalo offers an ultrasound elective course that is sponsored by the EM interest group. It's pretty popular with the first years.

 

[double elle]

Thanks guys - pointed me in some good directions.

 

[erin682]

MCG has a relatively new u/s course offered as a 4th year elective through the emergency dept. I'm scheduled to take it this fall and am really looking forward to it. I think it'll be a great skill to have as an emed intern.

 

[Dr JPH]

We have a good amount of Ultrasound in our required 3rd year Radiology rotation. The lucky students get it at the beginning of their 3rd year.

 

[acedens]

GE even sponsored an entire curriculum at one of the Carolina med schools...cant remember if it's north or south.

It's South Carolina (USC Columbia)

http://uscnews.sc.edu/RSRC302.html

 

[Rogue Synapse]

Yeah, that was one drawback of deciding not to go to USC. They're the first in the country to have this.

 

[Law2Doc]

We have a good amount of Ultrasound in our required 3rd year Radiology rotation. The lucky students get it at the beginning of their 3rd year.

It looks like the OP was talking about learning it in the earlier years (ie apart from rads; I don't think most schools do radiology during 3rd year anyhow -- I've only seen it as a 4th year elective.) -- as part of the physical exam. Based on the various articles in the major trade journals from last year about how so few students are mastering the dying art of the physical exam as is, I'm not sure this additional confounder is a great idea. I certainly understand why non-rads fields want to snag low cost, high billing diagnostic procedures for themselves though, so that is likely part of the motivation to move a specialty diagnostic tool into the province of the generalist.

 

[cfdavid]

Yeah, that was one drawback of deciding not to go to USC. They're the first in the country to have this.

I'm at Wayne State and the GE portable US systems are part of our curriculum even as 1st years. The bad part is that it's sort of an optional thing. They need to make it mandatory for everyone to prioritize that over studying for exams etc.