Specific lumbar puncture training during clinical clerkship durably increases atraumatic needle use

BACKGROUND: Atraumatic needles are proposed to lower complication rates after lumbar puncture (LP). Only a minority of physicians use such needles. Here we aimed to assess the impact of specific training in LP during clinical clerkship on the proportion of medical students using atraumatic needles. METHODS: We performed a case-control study comparing medical students undergoing clinical clerkship and students undergoing specific LP training. The 176 students of a class underwent training in LP just before beginning their clinical rotations. This training consisted of 45 minutes of theoretical training and a 90-minute practical session with a dummy. Twenty students were selected from the class at random, and their competence was assessed with a multiple choice questionnaire (MCQ) and an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE), nine months after the specific training. These 20 cases were compared with 20 students randomly selected from a class of 180 students who had not undergone specific training in LP and were at the end of their clinical clerkship. RESULTS: We found that 60% of the students with specific training and 25% of those with classic clinical training used an atraumatic needle during the OSCE (p = 0.025). The mean MCQ (/100) scores obtained were 57±15 and 60±15 for the specific and classic training groups, respectively (p = 0.35). Overall OSCE score was similar in the two groups (63.5±9.3 vs. 65.8±9.3; p = 0.20). CONCLUSION: Very few practicing physicians use atraumatic needles, which limits the teaching of their use to medical students. Specific training durably increases the use of appropriate needles.