General practitioner's skills to perform limited goal-oriented abdominal US examinations after one month of intensive training.

A training program of "limited goal-oriented abdominal sonography" for general practitioners (GPs) was planned, set up and tested. After 1 month of intensive training (about 100 examinations), four test subjects succeeded in technically performing examinations in four patients out of five patients, and were able to rule out or exclude fluid collections, aortic aneurysms and common gallbladder disease.