Transesophageal Echocardiography – Student Early Engagement in Didactic Sonography (TEE-SEEDS)

Background – Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is an essential diagnostic tool for many cardiac pathologies. Our hypothesis is that a simulator-based TEE training method would improve the confidence, knowledge, and skills of medical students without prior TEE instruction, and that more experienced ultrasound students would benefit the most. Methods – In phase one, second-year and fourth-year medical students watched a TEE video prior to training and took pre- and post-training confidence surveys and knowledge quizzes. The training session was a live TEE simulator demonstration, after which participants’ ability to obtain four TEE views and identify major anatomical structures was tested. In phase two, a larger cohort of second-semester first-year medical students underwent the same training curriculum. Results – The second- and fourth-year students' knowledge scores significantly improved by 37.9% and 34.0% respectively. The first-, second-, and fourth-year students significantly increased their confidence across all categories including: cardiac anatomy (20.0%, 16.9%, 37.7%), general ultrasound (34.6%, 29.8%, 40.8%), cardiac ultrasound (51.1%, 47.6%, 65.0%), and TEE (252.9%, 400%, 446%). All participants successfully demonstrated TEE skills. Conclusions – The data suggests that our TEE training protocol increases medical student TEE knowledge, confidence, and skills, demonstrating the benefits of implementing TEE training into medical curricula.