Sono4Students – A student Sonography Project

Abstract

Clinical sonography is of high significance in the daily medical practice. This field is growing more and more important and larger in clinical daily routine and is used numerously in today’s medicine. Clinical sonography is a useful tool, which burdens the patients less than other investigation technologies, by quickly confirming suspected diagnoses or excluding differential diagnoses. Therefore, sonography should be a part of early student education at universities. In spite of the immense importance of ultrasonic testing in clinical daily routine, only few universities make an effort to integrate a broad and organized ultrasound education in the curriculum.At the University of Bonn students frequently asked for ultrasonic courses, but only a few medical subject areas offered detached ultrasonic courses, which cover only a fraction of the demand.Because of the missing anchoring of this field in the curriculum of the medical faculty of Bonn, “Sono4Students” a student managed ultrasonic course was found in the beginning of 2010.Today, Sono4Studens is the biggest student initiative in Germany, in the scope of peer-teaching sonography. Since the beginning 189 courses with around 700 participants were held. The course offers a structured and standardized concept for participants, which focuses on topics relevant for the final exam and the clinical daily routine.