Clinical Learning in Translation: Analysis of Pre-Clerkship Ultrasound Training on Student Learning Behaviors During...

The addition of ultrasound training to undergraduate medical education (UME) curricula is on the rise. Despite widespread adoption, there is little focus on the learning theories that guide implementation or how student learning is transferred from one training setting to another. Using our school's UME ultrasound curriculum, we studied how changes implemented in the pre-clerkship curriculum (grounded in specific learning theories) influenced student learning and performance during clerkship rotations.

This was a retrospective study of an existing educational database of student responses and ultrasound submissions obtained during clerkship rotations. Data were collected using Qualtrics, de-identified, and exported to Excel for data analysis.

After the curriculum change students reported requiring less assistance in the process of obtaining their ultrasound images while the quality of student obtained images remained the same. When broken down by clerkship, there were noted variations in image quality and need for assistance with students on the surgery clerkship showing the greatest increase in independence during the study period. Analysis of assistance by clerkship showed substantial differences in the type of assistance provided.

Theory-based curriculum change in the pre-clerkship setting can have a measurable impact on student learning behavior in the clerkship setting. The results of this quantitative study provide evidence to guide further qualitative research to better understand how students apply pre-clerkship learning experiences in the clinical environment.