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Background: Point of care chest ultrasound (POCCUS) is expanding with useful new clinical applications. Opening a POCCUS service requires access to equipment, training sessions and a mentorship scheme, however, access to experienced mentors is not always easily available. Aims: To report the initial feedback from a pilot POCCUS long-distance mentorship project from the UK to Romania. Methods: An ultrasound (Mindray DP-50 with a convex probe) was acquired for the Pulmonology Clinical Hospital in Iasi, Romania, where resident physicians had no previous experience with POCCUS. A live 2-hour presentation on knobology and image acquisition was done for 20 residents. Long distance mentorship continued via WhatsApp and Skype from London, UK, with monthly sessions both on image acquisition and interpretation. Two months into the program a 9-item online questionnaire was administed to participants. Results: Fifteen doctors replied; 90% considered POCCUS useful in their clinical activity and important to implement; 74% indicated that the knobology was easy to learn, while 61% said that chest image acquisition was easy to learn. Although 55% considered chest image interpretation easy to learn, only 47% felt confident to use POCCUS routinely. Changes suggested included a more frequent online interaction, better structured online discussions, and to focus the specific training to a smaller group of doctors who can become local experts and trainers. Conclusion: Long distance POCCUS mentorship can work, but requires frequent and structured online discussions, with emphasis on image interpretation, directed to a small number of participants. |
