Bedside echo for chest pain: an algorithm for education and assessment

BACKGROUND: Goal-directed ultrasound protocols have been developed to facilitate efficiency, throughput, and patient care. Hands-on instruction and training workshops have been shown to positively impact ultrasound training. OBJECTIVES: We describe a novel undifferentiated chest pain goal-directed ultrasound algorithm-focused education workshop for the purpose of enhancing emergency medicine resident training in ultrasound milestones competencies. METHODS: This was a cross-sectional study performed at an academic medical center. A novel goal-directed ultrasound algorithm was developed and implemented as a model for teaching and learning the sonographic approach to a patient with undifferentiated chest pain. This algorithm was incorporated into all components of the 1-day workshop: asynchronous learning, didactic lecture, case-based learning, and hands-on stations. Performance comparisons were made between postgraduate year (PGY) levels. RESULTS: A total of 38 of the 40 (95%) residents who attended the event participated in the chest pain objective standardized clinical exam, and 26 of the 40 (65%) completed the entire questionnaire. The average number of ultrasounds performed by resident class year at the time of our study was as follows: 19 (standard deviation [SD]=19) PGY-1, 238 (SD=37) PGY-2, and 289 (SD=73) PGY-3. Performance on the knowledge-based questions improved between PGY-1 and PGY-3. The application of the novel algorithm was noted to be more prevalent among the PGY-1 class. CONCLUSION: The 1-day algorithm-based ultrasound educational workshop was an engaging learning technique at our institution.