Point-of-Care Ultrasound Training and Credentialing for mid-late Career Emergency Physicians: Is it worth it?

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is becoming more prevalent in community emergency medicine (EM) practice with the current American College of Emergency Physician guidelines recommending POCUS training for all graduates from United States based residency programs as well as support for POCUS privileging by the American Medical Association. However, in a recent survey of nonacademic EDs, it was found that most providers lack US training, credentialing, and quality assurance (QA) assessments of their POCUS studies. In 2017, our healthcare system embarked on a system-wide credentialing process for POCUS to credential community physicians with little to no POCUS training.

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Milestone Approach to Designing a Point-of-Care Ultrasound Curriculum for Transition-to-Residency Programs in the United States

Teaching and Learning in Medicine ◽

10.1080/10401334.2020.1814296 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-12

Author(s):

Ariel Sena ◽

Stephen Alerhand ◽

Sangeeta Lamba

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Point Of Care ◽

The United States ◽

Point Of Care Ultrasound ◽

Residency Programs

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International Federation for Emergency Medicine Point of Care Ultrasound Curriculum

CJEM ◽

10.1017/cem.2015.8 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 17 (2) ◽

pp. 161-170 ◽

Cited By ~ 32

Author(s):

Paul Atkinson ◽

Justin Bowra ◽

Mike Lambert ◽

Hein Lamprecht ◽

Vicki Noble ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Emergency Medicine ◽

Point Of Care ◽

Continuing Professional Development ◽

International Federation ◽

Point Of Care Ultrasound ◽

Emergency Physicians ◽

Educational Structure ◽

Skill Maintenance ◽

Wide Variability ◽

International Experts

AbstractTo meet a critical and growing need for a standardized approach to emergency point of care ultrasound (PoCUS) worldwide, emergency physicians must be trained to deliver and teach this skill in an accepted and reliable format. Currently, there is no globally recognized, standard PoCUS curriculum that defines the accepted applications, as well as standards for training and practice of PoCUS by specialists and trainees in emergency medicine. To address this deficit, the International Federation for Emergency Medicine (IFEM) convened a sub-committee of international experts in PoCUS to outline a curriculum for training of specialists in emergency PoCUS. This curriculum document represents the consensus of recommendations by this sub-committee. The curriculum is designed to provide a framework for PoCUS education in emergency medicine.The focus is on the processes required to select core and enhanced applications, as well as the key elements required for the delivery of PoCUS training from introduction through to continuing professional development and skill maintenance. It is designed not to be prescriptive but to assist educators and emergency medicine leadership to advance PoCUS education in emergency medicine no matter the training venue. The content of this curriculum is relevant not just for communities with mature emergency medicine systems but in particular for developing nations or for nations seeking to develop PoCUS training programs within the current educational structure. We anticipate that there will be wide variability in how this curriculum is implemented and taught, reflecting the existing educational environment, resources and goals of educational programs.

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Dedicated time for deliberate practice: one emergency medicine program’s approach to point-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) training

CJEM ◽

10.1017/cem.2015.24 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 17 (5) ◽

pp. 558-561 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Melissa Hayward ◽

Teresa Chan ◽

Andrew Healey

Keyword(s):

Emergency Medicine ◽

Medical Education ◽

Skill Acquisition ◽

Point Of Care ◽

Deliberate Practice ◽

Lessons Learned ◽

Point Of Care Ultrasound ◽

Residency Programs ◽

Education Literature ◽

Scholarly Discussion

AbstractPoint-of-care ultrasound (PoCUS) has become an essential skill in the practice of emergency medicine (EM). Various EM residency programs now require competency in basic PoCUS applications. The education literature suggests that deliberate practice is necessary for skill acquisition and mastery. We used an educational theory, Ericsson’s model of deliberate practice, to create a PoCUS curriculum for our Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada EM residency.Although international recommendations around curriculum requirements exist, this will be one of the first papers to describe the implementation of a specific PoCUS training program. This paper details the features of the program and lessons learned during its initial 3 years. Sharing this experience may serve as a nidus for scholarly discussion around how to best approach medical education in this area.

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Mapping Trends and Hotspots Regarding the Use of Ultrasound in Emergency Medicine: A Bibliometric Analysis of Global Research

Frontiers in Public Health ◽

10.3389/fpubh.2021.764642 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 9 ◽

Author(s):

Sheng Wang ◽

Demeng Xia ◽

Zhentao Zhang ◽

Jingli Zhang ◽

Wenhao Meng ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Emergency Medicine ◽

San Francisco ◽

Point Of Care ◽

Research Direction ◽

The United States ◽

Scientific Output ◽

Diagnostic Tools ◽

Point Of Care Ultrasound ◽

Main Research

Objective: Diagnostic tools in emergency medicine have been widely studied. As a non-invasive and quick tool, ultrasound plays a role in the field of emergency medicine. Thus, it is significant to understand the global scientific output of this topic. An analysis of publications on the use of ultrasound in emergency medicine over the past decade was performed and summarized to track the current hotspots and highlight future directions.Methods: Globally relevant publications on ultrasound in emergency medicine from 2009 to 2020 were extracted from the Web of Science collection database. VOSviewer software and CiteSpace were employed to visualize and predict the trends in the research on the topic.Results: The overall volume of global publications is on the rise; furthermore, the United States published the most publications in this field and had the most citations and H-index. University of California at San Francisco in the United States has most publications in terms of institutions. The American Journal of Emergency Medicine published the most papers related to ultrasound in emergency medicine in terms of journals. Pulmonary embolism was once the main research direction, and importantly, “point-of-care ultrasound” was determined to be a new research hotspot.Conclusion: Altogether, the number of publications on ultrasound in emergency medicine will rise in the future. In addition, the findings reported here shed new light on the major progress on ultrasound in emergency medicine, which may be mutually cooperative in various fields. Moreover, this bibliometric study provides further indications for the topic of “point-of-care ultrasound”.

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National Survey of Point-of-Care Ultrasound Scholarly Tracks in Emergency Medicine Residency Programs

Western Journal of Emergency Medicine ◽

10.5811/westjem.2021.5.52118 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (5) ◽

pp. 1095-1101

Author(s):

Stephen Alerhand ◽

Elaine Situ-Lacasse ◽

Christine Ramdin ◽

Michael Gottlieb

Keyword(s):

Emergency Medicine ◽

Point Of Care ◽

Survey Study ◽

Point Of Care Ultrasound ◽

Cross Sectional Survey ◽

Cross Sectional ◽

Residency Programs ◽

The Past ◽

Current Prevalence ◽

Hands On

Introduction: Residency scholarly tracks are educational programs, designed to help trainees develop an area of expertise. Although the breadth of residency point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) education has developed considerably in recent years, there is no literature to date describing scholarly tracks specifically in POCUS. In this study we sought to determine the prevalence, characteristics, and outcomes of POCUS scholarly tracks in emergency medicine (EM). Methods: This was a cross-sectional survey of EM residency programs accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education. Surveys were distributed between March-August 2020 using a listserv followed by targeted emails to residency and ultrasound leadership. We summarized data using descriptive statistics, and performed logistic regression to identify factors associated with a POCUS scholarly track. Results: Of 267 residency programs 199 (74.5%) completed the survey. Fifty-seven (28.6%) had a POCUS scholarly track as of the 2019-2020 academic year. Scholarly tracks in POCUS were more common in university-based/academic sites and larger residency programs. Of the 57 programs with POCUS scholarly tracks, 48 (84.2%) required residents to present at least one POCUS lecture, 45 (78.9%) required residents to serve as instructor at a hands-on workshop, and 42 (73.7%) required residents to participate in quality assurance of departmental POCUS scans. Only 28 (49.1%) tracks had a structured curriculum, and 26 (45.6%) required POCUS research. In total, 300 EM residents completed a POCUS scholarly track over the past three academic years, with a median of 4 (2-9) per program. Seventy-five (25.0%) proceeded to a clinical ultrasound fellowship after residency graduation, with a median of 1 (interquartile range 0-2) per program. A total of 139 POCUS-specific abstracts (median 2 [0-3]) and 80 peer-reviewed manuscripts (median 1 [0-2]) were published by scholarly track residents over the past three years. Conclusion: This survey study describes the current prevalence, characteristics, and outcomes of POCUS scholarly tracks across EM residency programs. The results may inform the decisions of residency programs to create these tracks.

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