Prof. Dr. Christoph Lees’ ISUOG 2022 Webinar
Prof. Dr. Christoph Lees’ ISUOG 2022 Webinar
Volutracer O.P.U.S. “Bridges the Gap” Between Ultrasound Theory and Practice and “Shortens the Learning Curve”
In his “Imperial College Obstetric Ultrasound Foundation Experience” webinar, international authority on fetal assessment Prof. Dr. Christoph Lees reflects on his experience teaching Basic Ultrasound Skills with Volutracer OPUS together with Anna Clark and Catriona Dickie. Throughout the past five years, they’ve been using OPUS to teach doctors, midwives, and sonographers. Yet, the neatly packaged take-home remote simulation system became most important during the pandemic, when traditional one-to-one ultrasound scanning of a patient became impossible.
Lees introduces Imperial College Clinical Research Fellow Dr. Anna Clark, who presents on:
• The ten modules mapped to the RCOG US competencies—such as Basic Biometry and Placental Location—they developed, what they mean, and how to use them in simple terms.
• The benefits of using OPUS, which allowed them to easily add theory videos, tutorials, tips, guided exercises, MCQs, and free scans to their modules.
• The simulations’ visuals and features: scan image, target plane, GPS, scoring, etc.
She concludes OPUS provides Imperial College Basic Ultrasound trainees with a structured standardized curriculum appropriate for their level of training, giving them the time to practice their skills away from the pressures of the clinical environment. Thus, the simulator bridges the gap between theoretical learning and clinical training.
Next, BSC Medical Student Neysa Patel explains that, after training Ob-Gyn students for the last year with the newly developed modules, they did a short evaluation to assess the impact of OPUS simulation training on their novice trainees at a Basic Level of Training. The assessment demonstrated that accuracy and confidence scores of the novice students were much higher after the OPUS modules completion, in just an hour—whereas it generally takes them hundreds of hours of traditional training to reach the same levels of competency!
Lees stresses that everyone is confident that OPUS can be particularly useful in Advanced Training such as Fetal Neurosonography, and they are currently developing specific modules for that purpose. He concludes that, although simulation will never replace conventional training in an ultrasound room with a real patient, Voutracer OPUS shortens the learning curve as the students start to scan in real patients.
