Doctors to get hands-on training in ultrasound

ScanTrainer, a simulation software will help emulate realtime scenarios

S. Suresh and Sudha Seshayyan at the lauch of the simulation lab for training on obstetrics and gynaecological ultrasound.

MediScan has launched a simulation lab for providing hands-on training on obstetrics and gynaecological ultrasound for doctors.

S. Suresh, co-director of MediScan Systems, said this was the country’s first transabdominal and transvaginal obstetric ultrasound simulation centre for ultrasound training. The advanced ultrasound skills training simulator — ScanTrainer — was launched with support from Intelligent Ultrasound. Sudha Seshayyan, vice-chancellor of the Tamil Nadu Dr. MGR Medical University, inaugurated the facility on Saturday.

“We will train doctors on how to do a good ultrasound and assess them. This will be similar to training with a patient. Intelligent Ultrasound uses machine learning and deep-learning algorithm. These will assess if a doctor has taken a section correctly or not. The machine tests the competence of doctors and gives a certificate at the end,” Dr. Suresh told reporters.

“According to a survey, 60% of women in India get an ultrasound done during pregnancy. This should be 100%. We need a large number of people trained in ultrasound and hence, they need to be trained,” he said. To standardise training, the International Society of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynaecology has created a four-day basic training curriculum.

As part of this, doctors will be given hands-on-training on the simulator before they scan patients. The training for a batch of doctors from Sri Ramchandra Institute of Higher Education and Research will commence in May, he added.

Nicholas Sleep, chief technology officer, Intelligent Ultrasound, said the simulation would be helpful in training persons and to standardise training. Indrani Suresh, co-director of MediScan Systems, said the simulator gave the experience as if attending to a real patient.

MediScan would help Intelligent Ultrasound to enhance its obstetric image database to aid the development of ScanNav AI-based clinical software that provides support for ultrasound professionals while obstetric scanning, a press release said. Rajeev Sindhi, chief executive officer of Sandor Ltd., spoke.