Thoracic ultrasound experience among East Kent doctors

In order to support our junior doctors in achieving more experience in thoracic ultrasound (TUS) skill, we provided an allocated time to attend the pleural clinic at the William Harvey Hospital under the supervision of experienced respiratory consultants, registrars and physician associates. The role of ultrasound in thoracic procedures has been growing significantly and the training programmes in the UK are demanding it as compulsory.1 All internal medicine trainees (IMTs) are expected to be competent in diagnostic thoracentesis and therapeutic chest drain, which both require TUS skill and this is not guaranteed to be attained during their 3 years of training.2 Longitudinal survey with intervention is applied. Participants were recruited via questionnaires and online signing up approach over 3 months. IMTs and locally employed doctors (LEDs) have responded that there is a significant improvement in their skill of identifying the normal lungs, pleura and nearby organs on ultrasound and all attendees can recognise pneumothorax whereas only 20% can appreciate the bar code sign, for example, before visiting the pleural clinic. The participants become more confident (33.3%) to do TUS guided procedures. As we can support only one participant per day currently, we agreed that the attendee could have visited more often and involved in performing the procedure so that they can have more experience. We agreed the exposure to TUS guiding procedures should be made readily accessible to our trainees and non-training doctors who are expected to be competent and to be performing in clinical practice. After attaining the skill in clinical skill lab, the provision of similar service from pleural clinics will be very supportive of our doctors achieving their desired competency and ultrasound experience.3 In East Kent hospital, we are planning to continue this support for our trainee andd non-trainee doctors with the aim of optismising our patients care who required pleural aspiration and chest drain. Pleural ultrasound experience in specialised pleural clinic has significantly improved the knowledge and confidence of IMTs and LEDs in performing TUS guiding procedures.