Abstract

It has been recognised that trainees often have difficulty in developing skills in ultrasound scanning additionally there is no established RCOG regime for hands-on training in ultrasonography. Ultrasound skills are essential, both for labour ward management and as a requirement for specialty registrar training. Recognising that these needs were not being met at Royal Cornwall Hospital, Truro and that fresh registrars from other units were arriving with minimal ultrasound experience recorded in their RCOG logbooks, a dedicated week of ultrasound scanning was planned. Specialty registrars arranged a week of study leave to allow absence from other clinical duties. The week began and finished with a structured assessment of their skills by the obstetric lead for ultrasound training. Clinics were identified that fulfilled the RCOG required topics for ultrasound scanning and the clinicians involved agreed to have the registrars in attendance and understood their learning needs. Feedback from the course was extremely positive with trainees developing skills and confidence progressively throughout the week, rather than revisiting skills in a disjointed unstructured way. All registrars were able to sign off significant portions of their RCOG logbook, some in entirety and all had a firm grounding in basic ultrasounds skills which they then had the confidence to develop. We suggest that this format could easily be implemented in other hospitals. Ensuring that trainers are aware of the specific learning needs of specialty registrars is a prerequisite. This approach offers one solution to the issues pertaining to registrar ultrasound competence.