Education
Core IM Curriculum
The uOttawa core IM program is in the process of implementing a formal POCUS curriculum that addresses anticipated royal college objectives for POCUS in coming years.
With the assistance of input from the core IM program, we helped develop a curriculum that addresses both the procedural and diagnostic use of POCUS in the clinical setting. This includes POCUS for core procedures (e.g. thoracentesis, paracentesis), diagnostic lung POCUS, basic cardiac POCUS.
We anticipate the curriculum will be longitudinal, with sessions included in all three PGY years.
Our hope is that the implementation of this curriculum will help establish Ottawa IM programs as national leaders in POCUS education.
AHD teaching material to come.
GIM Curriculum
Our GIM residents follow a longitudinal POCUS curriculum during their 2 years of subspecialty training.
We offer 4 academic half days (AHD) each year, with more advanced skills taught in the PGY5 year. These academic half days follow the flipped classroom format, with online material sent in advance of the AHD, thereby maximizing hands-on time for the in-person sessions.
GIM residents are also encouraged to send all their clinical scans for quality assurance through our hospital-wide archiving platform to support longitudinal, spaced learning.
In addition, all our GIM residents have the opportunity to complete a POCUS elective, where they dedicate 4 weeks to POCUS image acquisition, image interpretation, and clinical integration.
Finally, residents are evaluated using an Entrustable Professional Activities (EPA) throughout their 2-year training program. This EPA was developed locally with input from experts in medical education and POCUS. The expectation is that residents complete 50 EPAs to be considered credentialled POCUS users at the end of the program.
PoCUS Elective
The POCUS elective is opened to 2 GIM fellows and will run over a 4-week period. Learning objectives will focus on the skills of acquisition, interpretation, and integration of point-of-care ultrasound imaging in the management of internal medicine inpatients.
PoCUS Fellowship
Work in progress!
Educational Resources
The Ottawa Hospital GIM POCUS Resources
Online Module: PoCUS to rule out hydronephrosis in AKI (Part 1, Part 2)