Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Sonographic training in rheumatology: a self teaching approach
  1. E Filippucci1,
  2. Z Unlu2,
  3. A Farina1,
  4. W Grassi1
  1. 1Department of Rheumatology, University of Ancona, Italy
  2. 2Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation, Celal Bayar University, Manisa, Turkey
  1. Correspondence to:
    Professor W Grassi, Clinica Reumatologica, Università degli Studi di Ancona, Ospedale “A Murri”, Via dei Colli 52, 60035 Jesi (AN), Italy;
    reuman{at}popcsi.unian.it

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate a self teaching approach to be followed by a novice without previous practical experience in musculoskeletal ultrasonography.

Methods: The novice was given short general training (two hours) by an experienced sonographer focusing on the approach to the ultrasound equipment, and asked to obtain the best sonographic images of different anatomical areas as similar as possible to the “gold standard” pictures in the online version of the guidelines for musculoskeletal ultrasonography in rheumatology (free access at http://www.sameint.it/eular/ultrasound). At the end of each scanning session, both novice and tutor scored “blindly” all the images from 0 (the lowest quality) to 10 (the highest quality), with a minimum quality score of 6 considered acceptable for standard clinical use. The tutor then explained how to improve the quality of the pictures. Fourteen consecutive inpatients (seven with rheumatoid arthritis, three with psoriatic arthritis, two with reactive arthritis, and two with osteoarthritis) and five healthy subjects were examined. Ultrasound examinations were performed with a Diasus (Dynamic Imaging Ltd, Livingston, Scotland, UK) using two broadband linear probes of 5–10 and 8–16 MHz frequency.

Results: Sonographic training lasted one month and included 30 scanning sessions (24 hours of active scanning). 243 images were taken of the selected anatomical areas. The mean time required to produce each image was 6 minutes (SD 4.2; range 1–30). At the end of the training, the novice scored ⩾6 for each standard scan.

Conclusion: A novice can obtain acceptable sonographic images in 24 non-consecutive hours of active scanning after an intensive self teaching programme.

  • ultrasound
  • ultrasonography
  • learning curve
  • self teaching approach

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes