Enhancing POCUS Utilization in Family Medicine Through Didactic Training

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become an invaluable tool in family medicine, offering clinicians a fast, non-invasive method for diagnosis and procedural guidance. However, despite its growing importance, many family medicine residency programs face challenges in integrating POCUS training due to limited access to ultrasound equipment and faculty expertise.

A recent pilot study, Impact of Didactic Instruction on the Utilization of Point-of-Care Ultrasound in Family Medicine Residents, sought to determine whether a structured didactic POCUS training session could increase resident confidence and ultrasound utilization—even in a program with restricted equipment access.

The Study: Can a Single Didactic Session Make a Difference?

Sixteen family medicine residents at Penn State Hershey Family and Community Medicine Residency participated in a four-hour didactic ultrasound session. The session combined an hour of lecture-based instruction covering ultrasound fundamentals—such as knobology, tissue identification, and needle guidance—with three hours of hands-on scanning practice using simulated models. Residents rotated through scanning stations where they practiced image acquisition and needle guidance techniques on both peer volunteers and simulated tissue models.

To assess the impact of this training, researchers measured two key outcomes:

1. Resident Confidence in POCUS Skills
   • Confidence levels significantly increased immediately after the training.
   • Six weeks later, residents retained their confidence gains, particularly in ultrasound-guided needle procedures (p < 0.001).
2. Utilization of POCUS in Clinical Practice
   • Two years after the intervention, resident procedure logs revealed a 9.6% increase in the proportion of ultrasounds performed compared to the academic year prior to the training.
   • Notably, this increase occurred despite residents not having ultrasound machines available in their primary clinic settings.

Key Takeaways: Training Drives Adoption

The study highlights a crucial point: even with limited resources, structured POCUS training can have a lasting impact on both skill development and clinical application. By improving confidence, even a brief didactic session can encourage residents to seek out and integrate ultrasound into their clinical workflow when opportunities arise—whether during emergency medicine or sports medicine rotations, or later in their careers.

Challenges in POCUS Education

Despite these promising findings, the study also underscores persistent barriers to ultrasound education in family medicine:

• Equipment Accessibility: Many residency programs struggle to secure ultrasound machines for consistent practice.
• Faculty Expertise: Not all programs have instructors with ultrasound proficiency, making structured training difficult to sustain.
• Longitudinal Reinforcement: A single didactic session, while effective, may not be enough to cement long-term proficiency without continued exposure.

Addressing these challenges will be critical as more family medicine programs work to integrate ultrasound into routine clinical training.

Supporting Lasting POCUS Proficiency

The findings of this study reinforce the importance of structured POCUS education, even in resource-limited settings. However, to build true proficiency, learners need repeated exposure, standardized pathology cases, and expert feedback.

This is where SonoSim can play a key role. By providing on-demand ultrasound training, real patient pathology cases, and subject matter expert instruction, SonoSim helps bridge the gap between didactic learning and real-world application. Residency programs can use SonoSim’s full ecosystem to ensure consistent, scalable ultrasound education—giving residents the confidence and skills they need to integrate POCUS into their clinical practice effectively. Here is just a short list of some of the critical Family Medicine ultrasound applications residency programs can leverage from SonoSim:

Abdominal Ultrasound

Cardiac Ultrasound

OB/GYN Ultrasound

MSK Ultrasound

Pulmonary Ultrasound

Ultrasound-Guided Procedures

Vascular Ultrasound Training