POCUS in physician training

Ian Buchanan, MD, is an associate clinical professor, emergency physician, and Point-of-Care Ultrasound Fellowship Program Director at McMaster University, Canada. His clinical and educational focus is point-of-care ultrasonography.

Is point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) a “compulsory” element of physician training now? If not, should it become one?

Ian Buchanan, MD: I think that's an excellent question. I think that POCUS should absolutely be a compulsory part of any training now. Although initially described in the late 1970s and 1980s only sporadically, now POCUS has become a routine part of patient care.

There was a period of time where there was a gap between new indications evolving and having available faculty who were able to provide preceptorship to learners, but that gap has closed dramatically now. I think the next major step will be to be certain that those indications are included in a formal curriculum so that educational programs have a direction forward in terms of knowing exactly what they need to train their learners in and how to ensure competence is met.