Cureus (12/27/2022) Acuña, Josie; Pacheco, Garrett; Yarnish, Adrienne A.; et al.

A cross-sectional study assessed a simulation model for training emergency medicine (EM) residents in identifying anterior neck landmarks for cricothyrotomy through ultrasound (US). Forty-two residents learned to identify via US the thyroid cartilage, the cricothyroid membrane (CTM) and the cricoid cartilage on gel models of the neck following instruction. In all, 93% of the participants acquired an optimal sagittal or parasagittal sonographic view of the anterior airway landmarks, of whom 21.4% needed minimal assistance with initial probe placement. Pearson correlation outcomes showed significant positive correspondence between residents' year in training and visuomotor scores. More than 90% of the residents successfully identified landmarks when scanning the thin neck model, with median time to completion of 27 seconds. Subcutaneous air model scanning enabled successful landmark identification for 88.1% of residents, while 95.2% made accurate identifications when scanning the neck with fluid collection. Thick neck model scanning yielded successful identification among 73.8% of the residents, and 76.2% said they felt "confident" or "extremely confident" in identifying the CTM. The study validated the gel models' adequacy for training EM residents on US identification of anterior neck anatomy.

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