Clinical Anatomy and Ultrasound Bootcamp for Anesthesiology Residents: A Pilot Study and Lessons Learned

Ultrasound is a modern foundational tool used by anesthesiologists for peripheral nerve blocks. Clinicians performing hands-on ultrasound training on patients presents unique challenges, and the use of human anatomical donors has become a common substitute. With that, whereas ultrasound training sessions are common, they do not often include basic science anatomy reviews. This study explores an anatomist-led clinical anatomy review and physician-led ultrasound training session for first (n = 7) and second (n = 11) year anesthesiology residents.

Residents attended a 2-hour anatomy review on prosected anatomical donors by anatomists prior to physicians facilitating an ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve block training session on undissected donors. The session covered the interscalene, supraclavicular, femoral, sciatic, and transversus abdominis plane ultrasound-guided peripheral nerve blocks. Data was collected using presurveys and postsurveys and assessments and analyzed.

The session was found to be useful and significantly improved the residents' confidence across 14 domains related to the anatomy and approach to ultrasound for the given peripheral nerve blocks. All the participants (18, 100%) felt it was very useful having undissected anatomical donors side by side to dissected ones during the session. Knowledge acquisition also improved based on the significant increase in score on the 8-question assessment (p = .003).

The residents found this activity valuable and useful, especially learning from both undissected and prosected donors. With this approach, residents could compare the ultrasound image to the physical anatomy, which led to an increase in the residents' knowledge and confidence.