Predictors of success in emergency medicine ultrasound education

Objectives: To compare emergency medicine resident performance on an ultrasound-oriented, American Board of Emergency Medicine-styled written examination with the following variables in resident education: number of ultrasound scans performed, presence of a formal, structured ultrasound rotation, presence of a mandatory ultrasound rotation, number of hours of didactic ultrasound education, and percentage of ultrasound education taught by emergency physicians. Methods: This was a prospective cohort study involving 14 residency programs. A 60-question multiple-choice test was completed by individual residents and returned for scoring. Results: 262 residents completed the study. Average score was 39.1/60 +/- 6.5 (65%). Scores improved as residency year increased (year 1: 36.6 year 2: 39.3, year 3: 42.6) (p < 0.005). Scores improved as number of scans performed increased from 34.3 (57%) for those residents who had performed 0-10 scans to 45.4 (76%) for those with >150 scans (p < 0.005). The presence of an ultrasound rotation at an emergency medicine residency program also produced a statistically significant increase in test score (OR 1.82; 95% CI = 1.29 to 2.55). Residents at programs spending the least time (6 to 15 hours) on didactic education throughout the residency predicted examination failure (OR 0.60; 95% CI = 0.39 to 0.93). Increasing the amount of resident ultrasound teaching by emergency physicians improved the score, but this did not reach significance (p = 0.357). Conclusions: Improved resident performance on an ultrasound written examination was associated with increasing resident year, number of scans performed, and the presence of an ultrasound rotation at the residency program. Increasing the number of didactic hours spent on ultrasound each year beyond 15 hours showed no improvement in resident performance.