Limitations of Condensed Teaching Strategies to Develop Hand-Held Cardiac Ultrasonography Skills in Internal Medicine Residents.

Advances in ultrasonographic technology have allowed for hand-held cardiac ultrasonography (HHCU) units that fit into a physician's laboratory coat. Recently, studies to educate internal medicine residents have shown promise. The optimal duration and methodology for teaching HHCU skills has not been established. Over a 1-year period, internal medicine residents were recruited during their cardiology ward rotation into a single-centre nonblinded randomized trial. The 2 condensed teaching strategies were (1) a conventional ward-based program and (2) a technology-driven simulation-based strategy. Outcomes were evaluated by (1) an objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) to evaluate interpretation ability (assessing both type I and type II error rates) and (2) demonstration of HHCU skills graded by 2 level III echocardiographers. Twenty-four internal medicine residents were randomized. After teaching, the conventional teaching group had a significant absolute increase in the ability to make a singular correct diagnosis (20%; P < 0.001). In the technology arm, making a singular correct diagnosis increased 24% from baseline (P = 0.001). Interpretation skill was not significantly different between groups. The false-positive rate increased by an absolute 14% and 17% in the conventional and technology groups, respectively (P = 0.079 and P = 0.008). Our findings suggest that HHCU interpretation skills improve after either a conventional ward-based or a technology-driven approach. However, our study emphasizes the important limitations of both teaching programs, because we detected a trend toward an increase in the false-positive rate after both approaches. This suggests that a short duration of training may not be sufficient for HHCU to be performed in a safe manner.

RCT Entities:   Population Interventions Outcomes