Adam Vukovic
Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center
The incorporation of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) into the curriculum for fellowship trainees in Pediatric Emergency Medicine (PEM) has become an increasing area of interest, yet educators in PEM have not yet identified a sustainable approach to this educational objective. Recognizing this need, we aim to determine the utility of a POCUS curriculum focused on a single application (bladder imaging) in improving PEM fellows’ knowledge and performance of the procedure. After completing a pretest, fellows participated in a didactic learning session involving ultrasound physics as well as bladder imaging. PEM fellows will then participate in performance- and observation-based testing sessions with curriculum developers. At completion of the curriculum, learners will complete a post-curriculum test. Pretest and posttest data analysis will include standard descriptive statistics. Confidence intervals will be calculated for all estimates. Preliminary analysis of pretests suggests that current ultrasound exposure is insufficient to meet published knowledge-based passing standards. Neither fellow’s year of training nor prior participation in an ultrasound curriculum yielded improved scores on pretests. Learners identified several barriers to the usage of POCUS, including the learner themselves, attending physicians in clinical roles, an absence of formal POCUS educators, and clinical processes in the pediatric emergency department (PED).
