CEO: “Identify and utilize professional role models as a means of growth and accept the responsibility of acting as a role model and teaching and training others”
The most wonderful part of academic medicine is the opportunity to learn from fantastic teachers and then apply that knowledge to teach others. One of the areas where this has been most relevant throughout medical school is bedside ultrasound.
As ultrasound requires both knowledge and practical skill, fantastic mentors and teachers have been essential as I’ve built my competence in bedside ultrasound. Multiple times per week, every year, devoted faculty and more advanced students freely donated their time in the evenings with the sole goal of helping others to learn. Reading about how to perform a scan is essential, but having an experienced ultrasonographer demonstrate how to acquire that image in people of various shapes and sizes is invaluable. When I finally reached a level where I was able to contribute meaningfully to the learning of others, I was ecstatic.
As a member of the Advanced Ultrasound curriculum, I had the opportunity to teach the FAST scan to beginners at Ultrafest, OSU’s annual ultrasound symposium. I have been involved in the ultrasound curriculum at OSUCOM since the first year of medical school, but this was the first time I had the opportunity to condense my knowledge of the scans I learned and teach it to others.
This experience was fantastic, because it directly aligns with my future career within emergency medicine, where the FAST exam is an essential, daily component of practice. It was a rewarding experience to take my classroom knowledge from Advanced Ultrasound and my clinical knowledge from two rotations in the emergency department into the classroom to teach others.
I taught groups of students from around the country all day, and the best part of the whole day was the excitement in students’ eyes as we discussed the practical applications of the anatomy they have been learning. I recall being in their positions a few years prior and seeing the utility and practicality of bedside ultrasound. The FAST scan is fun because it is especially flashy and relatively easy to perform on a standardized model, so it was enjoyable to see the instant gratification the students’ received when they were able to find the necessary views.
This experience made it clear to me that I would like some degree of an educational role in my career. I may not pursue academic medicine full time, but the opportunity to teach others is rewarding and rejuvenating, and I accept the responsibility of continuing to teach and excite learners about medicine throughout my career.
See below for pictures from Ultrafest!
