• Vi Am Dinh, William Seth Dukes, Jennifer Prigge, and Michael Avila.
• Department of Emergency Medicine (V.A.D., W.S.D., J.P.); Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care (V.A.D.), and School of Medicine (M.A.), Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, California USA. vadinh@llu.edu.
• J Ultrasound Med. 2015 Oct 1; 34 (10): 1819-24.

ObjectivesThe benefit of formal ultrasound implementation in undergraduate medical education remains unclear. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of ultrasound curriculum implementation during year 1 medical student physical examination teaching on the ultrasound proficiency of medical students.MethodsAn ultrasound curriculum was formally implemented at our institution in August 2012 and since then has successfully trained 2 classes of medical students (year 1 and year 2). Year 3 and year 4 medical students did not receive any formal ultrasound training, as the curriculum had not yet been implemented during their preclinical years. With the use of a 22-point ultrasound objective structured clinical examination (US-OSCE), trained medical students were compared to untrained medical students. The US-OSCE tested image acquisition and interpretation of the following systems: ocular, neck, vascular, pulmonary, cardiovascular, and abdominal. Emergency medicine (EM) residents formally trained in bedside ultrasound were also tested with the US-OSCE to provide a reference standard.ResultsThere were 174 year 1, 25 year 2, and 19 year 3/year 4 medical students and 30 EM residents tested on the US-OSCE. Ultrasound-trained medical students were compared to untrained medical students, and overall US-OSCE scores ± SD were 91.4% ± 14.0% versus 36.1% ± 21.4% (P < .001), respectively. The EM resident group had an overall score of 99.1% ± 1.8%. The absolute percentage differences were 7.7% between EM resident and ultrasound-trained medical student scores and 63.0% between EM resident and untrained medical student scores (P < .001).ConclusionsImplementation of an ultrasound curriculum in undergraduate medical education showed a significant increase in trained versus untrained medical student ultrasound capabilities.© 2015 by the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine.

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