At the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, there’s a great deal of emphasis placed on starting students to learn ultrasound techniques early on in their studies. This is important, as it helps students relate directly to real anatomy that they’re observing, to achieve a certain level of intuition when using ultrasound, which often takes years, and to learn how to interact with patients.
The medical school is now introducing portable ultrasound machines equipped with 12-lead ECG heart monitoring to better understand the relationship between mechanical dynamics of the heart, and the electrical signals that it produces. “People recognize us as a leader in ultrasound teaching,” said Paul Dallas, director of the school’s ultrasound program. “Our school recognized the importance of ultrasound teaching early on by building it into students’ basic science instruction starting in their first year. These new machines are an indication of our continued commitment.”
Students in the program spend part of their first year of medical school studying anatomy and using ultrasound to get acquainted with it and the technology, while in their second year they get to look for diseases and to study various pathologies.
Here’s a short Virginia Tech video about its ultrasound program:
Via: Virginia Tech…