Impact of Physician Expertise on Probe Trajectory During Obstetric Ultrasound: A Quantitative Approach for Skill...

The objective of the study was to identify objective metrics to evaluate the significance of a sonographer's expertise on trajectories of ultrasound probe during obstetric ultrasound training procedures.

This prospective observational study was conducted at Rennes University Hospital, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. We evaluated a panel of sonographers (expert, intermediate, and novice) in performing 3 tasks (brain, heart, and spine) with an obstetric ultrasound simulator (Scantrainer; Medaphor, Cardiff, UK). The trajectories of the probe were logged and recorded by a custom data acquisition software. We computed metrics on the trajectories (duration, path length, average velocity, average acceleration, jerk, working volume) to compare the 3 groups and identify discriminating metrics.

A total of 33 participants were enrolled: 5 experts, 12 intermediates, and 16 novices. Discriminatory metrics were observed among the 3 levels of expertise for duration, velocity, acceleration, and jerk for brain and spine tasks. Working volume was discriminatory for the brain and the heart task. Path length was discriminatory for the brain task.

Our results suggest a relationship between the sonographer's level of expertise and probe trajectory metrics. Such measurements could be used as an indicator of sonographer proficiency and contribute to automatic analysis of probe trajectory to evaluate the quality of sonography and the sonographer.