Facing the Ultrasound education: Establishment of an unified and well-structured curriculum

Purpose: The role of medical ultrasound (US) is steadily increasing. Ultrasound is an inexpensive and readily available diagnostic method. Therefore ultrasound becomes even in medical schools more and more important in theoretical as well as in practical teaching.

Following this development many medical schools offer now a basic training in ultrasound. The concepts varies both in time, scope, content and availability of capabilities.

Material and Methods: The working group students in the DEGUM (German Society for Ultrasound in Medicine) has developed a catalogue of learning objectives, which is to represent the content minimum requirement and shall aid for a uniform and high-quality ultrasound training program. The basic principle for the development of this catalogue was the evaluation of various US-training concepts of medical universities in Germany, performed in 2014. Furthermore, the already existing concepts and topics for US-courses, established by DEGUM and the European Federation of Societies for Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology (EFSUMB) has been considered.

Results: From the viewpoint of the working group, this catalogue of learning objectives, separated into theoretical and practical skills, contains the minimum requirements for learning abdominal ultrasound in medical studies and can be valuable for medical schools to establish an ultrasound training for students.

Conclusion: The catalogue could make an important contribution to a unified and well-structured education in US, likewise as an element of quality assurance. Beyond, it could be the prospective basis for new course concepts.