The assessment of technical and interpretative proficiency in echocardiography

Objectives: We sought to assess the relationship between traditional measures of proficiency in echocardiography and an objective assessment of technical and interpretative skills. Background: Determination of competency in echocardiography is currently based on the number of months of training, echocardiograms scanned, and echocardiograms interpreted. It has not been established whether completion of these requirements is a surrogate for competency. Methods: In all, 22 cardiology fellows underwent an echocardiography objective structured clinical examination (OSCE). Results: There was a correlation between the number of echocardiograms scanned and the interpretation (r = 0.45, P =.038) and scanning (r = 0.42, P =.048) scores. There was a weak correlation between the number of echocardiograms interpreted and interpretation scores (r = 0.33); and number of months of training and the scanning (r = 0.39) and interpretation (r = 0.42) scores. Conclusions: Technical and interpretative proficiency in echocardiography is not related to traditional measures. An objective assessment of acquisition and interpretation of echocardiographic data should beincorporated into the assessment of proficiency in echocardiography.