Cardiac POCUS: Another Tool in the Armory

INTRODUCTION: This study assessed the educational impact of hybrid cardiac Point of Care Ultrasonography (POCUS) training in a community-based academic setting. METHODS: Internal Medicine and Medicine/Pediatrics residents across all post-graduate years (PGY) at a midwestern medical school under-took a structured hybrid (online and hands-on teaching) model of POCUS training. Anonymous surveys with Likert-type scale responses were administered before and after the curriculum. Questions were categorized into domains to assess the residents’ interest in learning POCUS, their understanding of fundamental cardiac ultrasound (US) concepts, and their confidence in its application. The authors used Fisher’s Exact and t-test, and estimated odds ratios to gauge the impact of the training to achieve net scores above 0 on each domain. RESULTS: A total of 27 and 26 residents completed the pre-and post-training surveys, respectively. Experience with previous cardiac US use showed a positive skew. The training resulted in a significant increase in both, the understanding of the principles, and the residents’ confidence in its application. These findings were most significant amongst PGY 2 and 3 residents. Post-training mean scores were similar across all domains for subgroups of PGY level and previous ultrasound experience. CONCLUSIONS: Residents displayed greater understanding of the fundamental cardiac ultrasound concepts with improved confidence levels after implementing a structured hybrid teaching model for POCUS. Future studies with objective assessment tools are needed to gauge the clinical impact of POCUS and its adoption rate in clinical practice to guide a recommendation for its incorporation into the residency curriculum.