Teaching Prenatal Ultrasound to Family Medicine Residents

摘要

Prenatal ultrasound is a powerful diagnostic tool, but there has been little research on how to teachultrasound to family physicians. The available evidence supports teaching through didactics followedby supervised scanning. Didactic topics include physics and machine usage, indications, fetal biometry,anatomic survey, practice management, ethical issues, and resources. Supervised scanning reinforcesthe didactic components of training. A "hand-on-hand" supervised scanning technique is recommendedfor the transmission of psychomotor skills in these sessions. Curricula for teaching ultrasoundshould include information on which residents will be taught prenatal ultrasound, who willteach them, how to create time for learning ultrasound skills, and how to test for competency. Theliterature suggests that competency can be achieved within 25-50 supervised scans. Measures ofcompetency include examination and qualitative analysis of scanning. Competency-based testing needsfurther development because no uniform standards have been established.