Teaching medical students diagnostic sonography.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this pilot project was to train medical students in sonography.


METHODS
Thirty-three medical students participated in a pilot sonography course, which included exposure to ultrasound physics, knobology of a compact ultrasound scanner, training in scanning and anatomy of the aorta and right kidney, and reading assignments in these areas. Pretraining and posttraining examinations were given in these areas to analyze the degree of knowledge gained by these methods.


RESULTS
Nearly all of the medical students increased their basic knowledge of sonography and improved their scanning skills. The improvement was statistically significant in all areas.


CONCLUSIONS
Training in sonography for medical students could be used as a foundation for later, more specialty-specific training to improve the overall medical sonography skills for all physicians.
Arger
Peter H
PH
Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, 3400 Spruce St, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. peter.arger@uphs.upenn.edu
Schultz
Susan M
SM
Sehgal
Chandra M
CM
Cary
Theodore W
TW
Aronchick
Judith
J
D001011:Aorta / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D004501:Education, Medical; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007668:Kidney / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D008297:Male; D010414:Pennsylvania; D010808:Physical Examination; D010865:Pilot Projects; D014463:Ultrasonography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods