Teaching prenatal ultrasound to family medicine residents.

Most family physicians do not use prenatal ultrasound in their practice. Low rates of using prenatal ultrasound may be due to a lack of understanding of technology availability, lack of awareness among ultrasound manufacturers that family physicians might use such equipment, or lack of training programs for family physicians. In addition, inter-specialty conflicts among family physicians, radiologists, and obstetrician-gynecologists may play a role in family physicians not using prenatal ultrasound. Nevertheless, family medicine residency directors indicate a strong interest in offering a prenatal ultrasound curriculum. In one survey, 87% of residency directors said they were willing to send faculty to a week-long training course and regularly use prenatal ultrasound in their residency practice. Fifty-four percent said they were willing to purchase a $20,000–$30,000 ultrasound machine. The benefits and disadvantages of teaching prenatal ultrasound in a residency program are shown in Table 1. This article focuses on how to assist family physicians in training to acquire the skills necessary to perform ultrasound examinations in their post-residency practices. Relevant literature is reviewed, and recommendations are made using US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) guidelines. This article does not attempt to present a detailed prenatal ultrasound curriculum but, instead, outlines a method of didactic instruction followed by supervised scanning. Details of implementation are discussed, including who teaches ultrasound, how to allocate time to teach, and how to evaluate learners. The key recommendations are shown in Table 2.