Evaluating long-term skill retention following teledidactic vs. on-campus musculoskeletal ultrasound training: The TELMUS-follow-up study

Musculoskeletal ultrasound (MSUS) relies on examiner competence, requiring ongoing practice, supervision, and quality assurance. Limited resources and densely packed medical curricula demand effective training methods to ensure long-term skill retention. Teledidatic as well as peer-assisted learning approaches have shown short-term results in training MSUS comparable with conventional in-class teaching. Consequently, this study aimed to evaluate the long-term retention of MSUS skills. One year after completing either the teledidactic or conventional course of a standardized MSUS elective (TELMUS study), medical students’ retention of MSUS skills in image acquisition and interpretation was assessed by a repeated objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). The follow-up OSCE scores of the teledidactic cohort and the on-campus cohort were compared to their previous results as well as between the two study groups. A total of 24 medical students of the initial 30 (80%) participated in the follow-up study. In the follow-up OSCE, students enrolled in the teledidactic course achieved an average score of 52.88 (SD± 6.12), which corresponds to 90.35% of the results of the post-course assessment. Similarly, the on-campus participating students reached 91.99% of their post-course OSCE with 52.25 (SD±7.45) points. No significant differences could be found between the two teaching cohorts (p > 0.05). Teledidactic teaching formats lead to an equivalent long-term maintenance of practical MSUS skills and serve as a sustainable didactic approach in medical education. The observed decline in skills across both cohorts highlights the critical need for repetition in student ultrasound education, ideally integrated into a longitudinal curriculum.