Introducing Final-Year Medical Students to Pocket-Sized Ultrasound Imaging: Teaching Transthoracic Echocardiography on a 2-Week Anesthesia Rotation

Problem: The availability of less expensive and smaller ultrasound machines has enabled the use of ultrasound in virtually all major medical/surgical disciplines. Some medical schools have incorporated point-of-care ultrasound training into their undergraduate curriculum, whereas many postgraduate programs have made ultrasound training a standard. The Chinese University of Hong Kong has charged its Department of Anaesthesia and Intensive Care to spearhead the introduction of ultrasound into the final-year medical curriculum by introducing handheld transthoracic echocardiography as part of perioperative assessment. Intervention: All 133 final-year students completed a 2-week anesthesia rotation, which began with a half-day session consisting of a lecture and hands-on practice session during which they learned 9 basic transthoracic echocardiography views using 4 basic ultrasound probe positions. Context: Each student was required to perform a transthoracic echocardiography-examine under supervision of 1 pat...