Preclinical Medical Student Echocardiography Training American Society of Echocardiography Curriculum

Preclinical Medical Student Handheld Echocardiography Training American Society of Echocardiography Curriculum

The investigators would like to evaluate how well pre-clinical medical students are able to perform a basic transthoracic echocardiography examination on a healthy volunteer using a hand-held ultrasound (HHU) after completing a flipped classroom echocardiography training methods which consist of pre-training e-learning, hands-on training, and competency assessment after the hands-on training.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Education; Echocardiography; Transthoracic Echocardiography; Medical Student
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Basic cardiac ultrasound training with Butterfly iQ handheld ultrasound

Detailed Description

Background There is expanding need for cardiac ultrasound training for medical students, although most of medical schools do not integrate cardiac ultrasound training into their curricula. Most of residency programs already have some standardized cardiac ultrasound training for residents, but there is no standardized cardiac ultrasound training for medical students. Last year, the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), which takes a leading role in establishing training for echocardiography, presented the recommended training methods of cardiac ultrasound for medical students with flipped classroom methods which consist of pre-training e-learning, hands-on training, and competency assessment after the hands-on training. But no researchers evaluated the effectiveness of the ASE recommended training methods at this moment. In addition, hand-held ultrasound (HHU) probe which enable us to perform echocardiography just connecting to cell phone, have become commercially available this year. The investigators believe most medical students will have their own HHU probe as well as physicians in ten years. Thus, the purpose of this study is to evaluate the ASE cardiac ultrasound training methods with applying the training methods to the pre-clinical medical students in University of Hawaii at Manoa using HHU probe.

Methods The investigators will perform a prospective, experimental educational study investigating the learning effects of ASE recommended echocardiography training in pre-clinical medical students on cognitive and psychomotor skill using HHU device, when performing a basic echocardiography on a healthy volunteer.

The investigators will use e-mail, presentations and public posting on bulletin board in University of Hawaii for recruiting participants of 1st or 2nd year medical students. Target sample size is 130 at maximum. After recruitment of participants, first, participants will take a pre-training knowledge assessment and questionnaire on basic cardiac ultrasound (30 minutes) one week before the day of hands-on training. Second, after the pre-training assessment, participants will independently review the 40 minute American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) recommended e-learning module (https://aseuniversity.org/ase/lessons/47) on basic cardiac ultrasound prior to the hands-on training day. Third, on the day of hands-on training, participants will take a pre-training skill assessment and receive hands-on training for basic cardiac ultrasound with a healthy volunteer (HV) (60 minutes). Immediately after the hands-on training, participants will complete a post-training knowledge and skill assessment on basic cardiac ultrasound with a HV and questionnaire about participants' experience (30 minutes). Finally participants will take another post-training knowledge & skill assessment on basic cardiac ultrasound and questionnaire about participants' experience eight weeks after the hands-on training day to assess retention of their knowledge and skills on basic cardiac ultrasound with a HV (30 minutes).

In this study, investigators plan to use HHU probe, named Butterfly iQ hand-held ultrasound, Butterfly Network, Inc.

The knowledge assessment contains 40 MCQs on 5 basic views. In the skill assessment, participants will be asked to obtain 5 basic views on a HV in 2 minutes per view and the images are to be video-recorded. After de-identification of obtained images, the image quality of 5 basic views will be assessed by three independent blinded assessors using image quality scoring system investigators devised. One of investigators will take a role of a HV for echocardiography throughout this study consistently.

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 58
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • Hawaii
    • Honolulu, Hawaii, United States, 96813
      • SimTiki Simulation Center, John A. Burns school of medicine, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 16 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Participants must be preclinical medical students (1st year or 2nd year) at John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii.
• Participants are eligible after completion of 1st year medical student core cardiology curriculum at John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii.

Exclusion Criteria:

• None

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Basic cardiac ultrasound training; Single group education intervention study. No control group. Pre-post educational outcomes only.	Other: Basic cardiac ultrasound training with Butterfly iQ handheld ultrasound; Pre-training online module of the American society of Echocardiography and hands-on training of basic cardiac ultrasound with Butterfly iQ handheld ultrasound.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Image quality score change from pre-training to eight weeks after training.	Image quality score of five basic cardiac ultrasound views assessed by predefined test scoring system. In the scoring system, each view is assessed excellent (2 points), acceptable (1 points), or poor (0 point) for clinical use. Summed, total score, thus, ranges from 0 to 10 points.	Eight weeks after hands-on training.

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Image quality score change from pre-training to immediately after training.	Image quality score of five basic cardiac ultrasound views assessed by predefined test scoring system. In the scoring system, each view is assessed excellent (2 points), acceptable (1 points), or poor (0 point) for clinical use. Summed, total score, thus, ranges from 0 to 10 points.	Immediately after hands-on training.
Knowledge test score change from pre-training to eight weeks after training.	40 multiple choice questions about anatomical knowledge of five basic cardiac ultrasound views using Google Form. Total score ranges from 0 to 40 points.	Eight weeks after hands-on training.
Knowledge test score change from pre-training to immediately after training.	40 multiple choice questions about anatomical knowledge of five basic cardiac ultrasound views using Google Form. Total score ranges from 0 to 40 points.	Immediately after hands-on training.
Overall 5-point Likert scale participants training satisfaction	Overall participants training satisfaction assessed with 5-point Likert scale. This scale ranges from 1 to 5. Higher Likert scale represents higher participant training satisfaction.	Immediately after hands-on training.
Overall 5-point Likert scale participants training satisfaction	Overall participants training satisfaction assessed with 5-point Likert scale. This scale ranges from 1 to 5. Higher Likert scale represents higher participant training satisfaction.	Eight weeks after hands-on training.
Participant confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound.	Participant confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound assessed with 5-point Likert scale. This scale ranges from 1 to 5. Higher Likert scale represents higher participants confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound.	Immediately before hands-on training.
Participant confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound.	Participant confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound assessed with 5-point Likert scale. This scale ranges from 1 to 5. Higher Likert scale represents higher participants confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound.	Immediately after hands-on training.
Participant confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound.	Participant confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound assessed with 5-point Likert scale. This scale ranges from 1 to 5. Higher Likert scale represents higher participants confidence in basic cardiac ultrasound.	Eight weeks after hands-on training.
Findings of post-training predefined survey	Findings of post-training predefined survey regarding usefulness of training.	Immediately after hands-on training.
Findings of post-training predefined survey	Findings of post-training predefined survey regarding usefulness of training.	Eight weeks after hands-on training.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: University of Hawaii
• Investigators: Study Director: Benjamin W Berg, MD, SimTiki Simulation Center, John A. Burns School of Medicine.

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Johri AM, Durbin J, Newbigging J, Tanzola R, Chow R, De S, Tam J. Cardiac Point-of-Care Ultrasound: State-of-the-Art in Medical School Education. J Am Soc Echocardiogr. 2018 Jul;31(7):749-760. doi: 10.1016/j.echo.2018.01.014. Epub 2018 Mar 15.
• Jujo S, Lee-Jayaram JJ, Sakka BI, Nakahira A, Kataoka A, Izumo M, Kusunose K, Athinartrattanapong N, Oikawa S, Berg BW. Pre-clinical medical student cardiac point-of-care ultrasound curriculum based on the American Society of Echocardiography recommendations: a pilot and feasibility study. Pilot Feasibility Stud. 2021 Sep 14;7(1):175. doi: 10.1186/s40814-021-00910-3.

Helpful Links

• Online training module for Cardiovascular Point-of-Care Imaging for the Medical Student and Novice User on American Society of Echocardiography web site

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 9, 2019
• Primary Completion (Actual): May 31, 2020
• Study Completion (Actual): May 31, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: September 3, 2019
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: September 9, 2019
• First Posted (Actual): September 10, 2019

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): November 9, 2020
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: November 6, 2020
• Last Verified: November 1, 2020

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Training; Education; Point of care; Flipped classroom; Preclinical medical students; Handheld ultrasound; Butterfly iQ; Basic cardiac ultrasound; Focused cardiac ultrasound
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2019-00265

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: No

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No