Practical ultrasound workshops to teach medical students basic concepts of ultrasound semiology

To evaluate the effectiveness of practical ultrasound workshops for the acquisition and consolidation of conceptual learning about the basic physics and semiology of ultrasonography aimed at third-year medical school students doing the physical examination module of their studies.

We carried out practical ultrasound workshops with two groups of 177 and 175 students in two consecutive academic years. All students had taken a class in basic radiology in the previous year. Students examined each other with ultrasonography under instructors' supervision in a two-hour session. Before and after the workshop, students did a seven-question multiple-choice test about basic semiology and answered two questions evaluating their degree of confidence in interpreting ultrasonographic images and handling the ultrasound scanner on a scale from 1 to 10.

No significant differences were found between the scores obtained in the two groups. Overall, the mean score on the multiple-choice test improved from 59.71% on the initial assessment to 88.29% on the post-workshop assessment (p <0.01). Confidence in interpreting images improved from 3.39/10 to 6.28/10 (p <0.01), and confidence in handling the equipment improved from 3.73/10 to 6.51/10 (p <0.01).

Practical workshops were useful for learning basic concepts about ultrasound imaging, allowing students to significantly improve their scores on the multiple-choice test. Students had a low level of confidence in their ability to interpret ultrasound images and handle the equipment before starting the workshop, but their confidence improved significantly after completing the workshop.