Evaluating the impact of a Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) workshop on medical trainees at a Radiology Resident Forum conference: A pre- and post-intervention study

Abstract

Introduction:

This study evaluates the impact of a Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) workshop delivered at the 6th Radiology Resident Forum conference, assessing how its student-led and clinician-supervised approach affects the knowledge, confidence and attitude of workshop participants, giving scope for future recommendations of implementation of formal POCUS teaching in medical curricula.

Methods:

Four POCUS workshops were conducted at an international radiology conference, with participants comprising of resident doctors and medical students. Workshop sessions included a 15-min teaching session and a 40-min hands-on session covering POCUS fundamental skills. Pre- and post-workshop participant and instructor questionnaires assessed educational merit using three domains of Bloom’s taxonomy: knowledge, confidence and skill. Statistical analysis with Wilcoxon signed-rank tests was used to compare pre- and post-workshop scores for paired Likert-type scale responses.

Results:

Thirty-nine participants were included, the majority of which were resident doctors (74.3%) with minimal exposure to ultrasound. Wilcoxon signed-rank tests demonstrated statistically significant improvement across all three Bloom’s domains (p < 0.01). All attendees considered POCUS a valuable addition to clinical practice and indicated a willingness to continue their learning. Instructor post-workshop skill assessments categorised attendees as proficient-to-expert with respect to ergonomics, scanning and image interpretation.

Conclusion:

POCUS is increasingly being shown to augment clinical examination and improve patient flow and outcomes. As such, there is an unmet demand from resident doctors to learn this skill. We demonstrate that structured, near-peer POCUS workshop teaching for resident doctors can result in significant short-term skill improvement and educational merit, suggesting justification for its formal implementation within UK postgraduate curricula.