Clinical electromyography and electrodiagnosis course at Keio University Hospital--a 7-year experience

Although electromyography and electrodiagnosis (EMG-EDX) is one of the most fundamental skills in rehabilitation medicine, the number of residency programs that can provide comprehensive postgraduate EMG-EDX training is still limited in Japan. Under these circumstances, we started a 2-day primer course in EMG-EDX at Keio University Hospital in 1998. To review our 7-year experience with the course, we analyzed the number and specialty of the participants, their appraisal of the lectures and practical sessions, and the score distribution of the final examination. The number of participants totaled 288 during the past 7 years, and the mean number for each year was 41. The distribution by specialty for the whole period was 64.0% for rehabilitation medicine, 25.4% for orthopedic surgery, 5.1% for neurology, 1.0% for pediatrics, 0.5% for gerontology and 4.1% for physical therapists and occupational therapists. The difficulty levels of the lectures were judged as appropriate by 81 to 95.5% of the participants, and the presentation was judged as good by 34 to 67% of them. For the practice sessions, the difficulty levels were judged as appropriate by 88% of the participants, and the quality of the supervisors was judged as good by 64% of them. The mean score for the final examination was 56.0 (SD 15.2, median 60). In conclusion, our course has played an important role to promote EMG-EDX in our country by providing compact introductory exposure to EMG-EDX for beginners. A follow-up system for the course graduates is planned to support their EMG-EDX practice.