Dr. Pallavi Patel College of Health Care Sciences

Experiential learning is tantamount to lab instruction offered to sonography students across all modalities and has been incorporated into both the CVS and MS curricula for years. The missing elements from this experiential learning are the simulation of pathology and the unpredictability of patients in hospitals, leading to the necessity of clinical instruction via externship. The ability to scan patients, find pathology, and synthesize diagnostic findings for reporting directly to physicians is not only an applied skill but an art form unique to the ultrasound profession. Successful incorporation of both didactic and clinical instruction is necessary to educate future sonographers such that they not only conceptualize important material necessary for successful diagnostic imaging, but also for them to pass their international registries. This presentation shares the educational process used in cardiovascular sonography for several purposes, the first of which is to illuminate other educators about the importance of using experiential learning supported by pertinent didactic instruction. Second, this presentation demonstrates how to incorporate simulation into this complex dual-learning process as our program has been doing for many years now to prepare our students for clinical instruction. Finally, this presentation suggests ideas on how to incorporate IPE that will be more useful to sonography students than previous activities have demonstrated according to student feedback received over several years. 

Participants will be able to:

1. Identify the instructional methodologies used by sonography instructors. Understand the necessity of the combined didactic and clinical portions of the sonography programs.

2. Identify areas where your own educational instruction could incorporate experiential learning and simulation.

3. Brainstorm ideas for adapting simulation for your own students and programs.

4. Facilitate discussions on developing relevant IPE.