News and Information
Teaching POCUS: The Journey from Learner to Teacher
A few of our newsletters have focused on habit formation and foundational content for new POCUS learners. We’ve also released new free resources for learners of all stages, including free downloadable POCUS pocket guides and our 15 day POCUS challenge.
This article focuses on teaching. As POCUS continues to rapidly expand, clinicians often find that they go from being a relative beginner POCUS user to quickly being asked to teach others, mentor beginners, and be a POCUS champion in their healthcare institution. And as we know from GUSI experience, teaching others vastly improves your own POCUS skills. Read on for some tips and basic principles in teaching POCUS – and share your own with us (Linked-in | Twitter/X | Facebook | Instagram | Youtube | GUSI contact. We’d love to hear from you!
Quality assurance, skill level, and confidence
A prerequisite to teaching POCUS is being able to do your own quality assurance: understanding whether the image you are obtaining is satisfactory (good quality, includes proper landmarks as applicable, etc) and why or why not. You don’t have to be an expert or even to have completely mastered a scan type in order to be a great teacher, but you do need to have a clear sense of your skill and knowledge limits.
Make sure you get outside checks on your image acquisition skills. You can do this by getting feedback on your scans from local mentors, or submitting your scans for GUSI Scan Review – a service that works with all types of ultrasound probes, and provides detailed expert feedback to help you improve your technique. All being said, you probably know more than you think. So many people suffer from impostor syndrome – read on for tips to help you master teaching!
Know and transmit the basics
Before scanning, make sure your learners know the basics of how ultrasound images are formed (what up, down, right and left on the screen translate to in terms of the patient’s body), the 2D screen to 3D body connection, and the ultrasound machine basics (see this blog post for tips, or for more detailed explanations watch the intro videos in our online courses). Many teachers skip over these basic steps, and it’s hard to build more POCUS skills unless this foundation is solid. At a minimum, a quick rundown of this information should take ~30 seconds to 1 minute with a new learner before starting a scan (although a detailed explanation can take much longer). By making this pre-scan learning participatory, you can also get an initial sense of the learner’s familiarity with ultrasound.
During scanning, remind your learners of hand anchoring, gel, depth, zoom, gain and probe orientation. You will likely need to do this over and over – that’s normal! Also model asking patient permission, checking in about patient comfort, proper draping, and respect.
Hands off the probe
When teaching, it can be so tempting to adjust the probe for the learner or just take over, but the best way for people to learn is by holding the probe themselves. Some ideas to avoid taking over the probe:
- Use standardized terminology like rock, fan, rotate, slide to guide the learner in how to move the probe.
- If that’s not working, use your cell phone or similar object to mirror the probe’s direction and model the adjustments needed
- If that’s not working, ask if you can put your hand over the learner’s hand to move the probe (last resort!)
Ask about your learner’s skill level, learning edge, and learning goals
This will help the learner reflect on their own process, and will help you target teaching.
Transmit your passion and engage
We hear all the time from learners and teachers that as they improve their skills, POCUS becomes more and more fun and engaging. Think back to when you were a beginning learner – there were probably times when you felt frustrated, disheartened, or confused. Use teaching as an opportunity to transmit your passion for POCUS, engage the learner, and draw out their natural curiosity. You’ll help learners see POCUS as an incredible tool for exploring anatomy and connecting with patients in a whole new way.
To do so, ask open ended questions that help the learner think through what they are seeing as they scan. “Which part of the image is closest to the probe?” “Which direction in the image is the patient’s head? To their feet?” “What do you think will happen if you [rotate, slide, etc] the probe here?” Then have them try it out and see if they are correct. Connect what you are seeing in your scan to clinical applications. How could this POCUS scan change management?
Point out things the learner is doing well – positive reinforcement goes a long way.
GUSI can support you every step of the way
Going from learner to teacher may feel intimidating. GUSI can help!
- Build your own skills with a GUSI online Essentials, OB, MSK, Pediatric POCUS course. The courses provide clear explanations of ultrasound basics as well as detailed and practical explanations of how to obtain and interpret images, with emphasis on troubleshooting common issues.
- Go a step further with GUSI in-person courses (during which you’ll see our instructors modeling all of the above techniques)! Courses include online curriculum access. You can attend an open course (see website), or bring in-person courses to your institution.
- Submit your scans for GUSI scan review, with extensive practical feedback
- During a GUSI individual or group online fellowship, you will receive tailored instruction and feedback to take you to the next level. Fellows are also trained in teaching skills
- Use GUSI’s downloadable Free Pocket Guides (General, MSK, and OB) – complete with visual aids and diagrams – to quickly review content with learners
- Share GUSI’s other resources with learners: habit formation, foundational POCUS content, and our 15 day POCUS challenge.
Do you have other teaching tips? Let us know! (Linked-in | Twitter/X | Facebook | Instagram | Youtube | GUSI contact.)