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.
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:
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.
Despite these promising findings, the study also underscores persistent barriers to ultrasound education in family medicine:
Addressing these challenges will be critical as more family medicine programs work to integrate ultrasound into routine clinical training.
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: