Echocardiographic Interpretation Skills of Graduating Cardiology Trainees

Cardiology graduates can independently practice echocardiography upon completion of six blocks of echocardiography; performance of 150; and interpretation of 450 echocardiograms. These thresholds have not been formally evaluated whether they equate to competency in echo interpretation. This study assessed echocardiography interpretation skills of four consecutive years of graduating trainees who volunteered to participate in an assessment of echocardiography interpretative skills. Our findings suggest that graduating cardiology trainees' echocardiography interpretation skills may be suboptimal, and improvement to our training and evaluation methods should be considered.