Abdominal ultrasound is a crucial tool in the evaluation of the abdomen of dogs and cats with abdominal disease. It is increasingly critical as a veterinarian to be able to obtain high quality ultrasound images and be able to interpret these images in the framework of the signalment and clinical history of the patient. Currently, veterinary students receive a limited amount of ultrasound training at OSU.
This course will be offered as hybrid course using Canvas. The course will be a 3-credit course offered in the Carlson College of Veterinary Medicine at Oregon State University. Student needs to be in 3rd year standing and have successfully passed VMC 764 or an equivalent veterinary diagnostic imaging course to enroll in the hybrid small animal ultrasound course.
In the course, approximately 2h per week will be face-to face and approximately 4 hours of the class will be done on-line through Canvas. The online aspect of the course is designed to help the student understand the basic physics of ultrasound and principles of abdominal diagnostic ultrasound. The online course includes indications for performing an abdominal ultrasound, animal preparation, positioning, scanning techniques, and normal sonographic anatomy of the abdomen. Included in the online material will be demonstrations of routine abdominal organ ultrasound examinations, as well as features on ultrasound system knobology and image optimization. You will online familiarize yourself with the normal ultrasound anatomy specific for the abdomen in dogs and cats, which is crucially important as ultrasound is a diagnostic technique, which requires a lot of anatomic understanding. Furthermore, the course will also include additional cases studies of small animal patients with abdominal disease using still images and videos.
In the class meeting times of the hybrid course, pertinent veterinary ultrasound case examples will be discussed and these selected cases will be in line with the weekly online material. In the class meeting , well will work on verbalizing imaging findings, designing a list of differentials as well as discussion of additional diagnostic plans. The class time will also be used to discuss questions of the weekly online material.
Students will be evaluated on each learning objective using quizzes, literature topic review projects, group projects using rubrics, participation online and in class.
This course will require a large time commitment from the student; however, as face-to-face meeting times are short, the student will have the possibility to perform the online aspect based on their time availability.
Nice that you included a photo in your blog. I see it does make it much more interesting!