Assessment of Skill Retention in Clinical Practice

Teaching program population: Participants in Hadassah Ein Kerem ultrasound training day - Anesthesia residents Exclusion criteria: Refusal to participate, insufficient understanding of written English used in the questionnaires

Stage 1 - training The aims and requirements of the teaching program will be explained to the participants at the start of the workshop. All participants will be given a sticker with a number and a questionnaire numbered about current ultrasound practice which is numbered according to participant number to allow for blinding. Anyone not wishing to participate can either remove their sticker or not return the questionnaire at the end of the session. The number on the questionnaire correlated to participant number. This will be recorded against the participant name to allow for further follow up. All participants will rotate normally throughout the sessions. At the end of the neuraxial session participants will be scored by the session leader according to their ability to adequately carry out the procedure. Scores will be correlated to participant number.

Stage 2 - assessment of skill retention

Following the training day participants will randomly be allocated into two groups. One group will receive regular reminders to use ultrasound for all neuraxial anesthesias they perform in the OR or labor ward. They will be reminded on a regular basis that ultrasound is a new tool to assist them in performing neuraxial ultrasound. The other group with be allowed to continue with their regular practice and will not receive reminders to use ultrasound for neuraxial anesthesia insertion. Two months after the initial training day all participants with be observed performing neuraxial anesthesia and re-assesed according to the original scoring system. Each participant will be assessed 3 times over a 6 month period.