A Systematic Review of the Integration of Ultrasound into Medical School Curriculum

We identified different ways ultrasound was being taught in medical schools and the feedback of medical students concerning what was learnt. From the articles we reviewed, different teaching methods were identified and most institutions used surveys to get feedback from students. The feedback yielded mostly positive results as the students showed eagerness to learn and participate more in ultrasound based learning. It was also shown to have enhanced their knowledge of courses like Anatomy, Pathology and Physiology amongst others.It is of great benefit to teach ultrasound to students all through medical school. It will not only boost the confidence of the students in being able to identify the normal from the abnormal while viewing the inside of a human body, but also prepare them for any challenges they will face in their clinical practice especially while handling ultrasound investigated cases.The use of ultrasound imaging has been quite beneficial in the medical field especially in diagnosing a wide range of conditions affecting different systems in the human body. It enables medical practitioners to view the inside of a human, ranging from various organs and tissues to a growing fetus. It is therefore important for medical students to have the adequate knowledge on the use and interpretation of ultrasound imaging and this should be incorporated in the curriculum all through the years in medical school. Therefore, the aim of this research is to analyse the benefits of introducing ultrasound through the years of medical school in order to facilitate proper acquisition of ultrasound technique by the students.We searched various databases such as Medline and EBSCO for articles that discussed the teaching of ultrasound in medical schools. We reviewed 12 articles from 2008-2015 that described the teaching of the use and interpretation of ultrasound, its incorporation into different subjects and into the medical school curriculum. We compiled our findings, identifying the key benefits of teaching ultrasound in medical school and how medical students agreed that the knowledge of ultrasound and its continuous teaching all through medical school contributed greatly to their medical education