Assessment of a brief point-of-care ultrasound training workshop among a large cohort of medical students

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has generated increasing interest among clinicians and educators and prompted several medical societies to publish guidelines for its integration into medical schools' curricula. Université Paris Cité (UPC) proposed that 180 final-year students participate in a pilot practical POCUS workshop before residency. This study aimed to assess the feasibility and evaluation of this workshop. Students were welcomed in groups of 30 during 10-hour sessions during which each group of 3 to 4 students shared one scanner and performed examinations on each other under supervision. They completed a questionnaire to assess their prior ultrasound experience and evaluate their self-confidence in visualizing the designated targets before and after the workshop on a scale from 0 to 10. At the end of the workshop, students had to perform a timed ultrasound examination targeting 15 anatomical areas. Continuous variables were reported as medians with interquartile ranges. Before the workshop, 144 students (82.3%) reported having no or little experience with ultrasound. Post-workshop, self-confidence improved significantly from 4 [3-6] to 8 [7-9], P<0.0001, and exhibited reduced variability among the different targets. In the final timed test, 123 out of 164 students (75%) who performed the test achieved all 15 ultrasound targets within 5 minutes {252 [210-285] seconds}. Short, focused workshops can efficiently equip students with fundamental ultrasound skills, significantly enhance their self-confidence, and could be a first step into integrating POCUS into large cohorts of medical students.