SWINE AND DYNAMIC ULTRASOUND MODELS FOR TRAUMA ULTRASOUND TESTING OF SURGICAL RESIDENTS

Background. Trauma ultrasound workshops have been recommended for trai ning surgical residents. We assessed the teaching effectiveness of the workshop, com paring swine and dynamic patient ultrasound models. Mat erials and methods. MCQ exams on ultrasound physics and practical skil ls tests with and without pericardial or peritoneal fluid using four s wines and eight dynamic patient ultrasound videos were used to compare pre- and postworkshop performance in 18 surgical residents (Group I) and a matched control group of 18 (Group II). Paired t tests and unpai red t tests for paired and unpaired data, respectively, were used for analysis with a P < 0.05 being considered statistically significant. R esults. Mean scores (% correct response) +/- SD were as follows (P < 0.05 vs Group I). [GRAPHICS] For the swine model, the best scores were with pericardial fluid (25.0% pre vs 69.4% post in Group I) and the w orst scores were with RUQ fluid (5.6% pre vs 22.2% post in Group I). P ostworkshop dynamic video scores were always higher than the swine mod el scores in Group I (100% correct video scores for pericardial fluid) . Conclusions. This study confirms the trauma ultrasound workshop teac hing effectiveness. For testing, the swine model (especially RUQ) was more difficult. In postcourse evaluation, the dynamic human video was considered more relevant, realistic, and less costly for repeated test ing of the residents. (C) 1998 Academic Press.