Background and Aims In recent years, the use of ultrasound (US) in anesthesia has become the gold standard for procedures such as peripheral nerve blocks and vascular access. Despite multiple-systematic-reviews and meta-analysis in favor of the adoption of preprocedural-US for neuraxial procedures in obstetric patients with difficult spine anatomy2,3,4, it’s use for neuraxial block did not achieve the same popularity1. The main barrier to implementing this technique in routine clinical practice might be the lack of familiarity with the technique, hence we design this study to evaluate the improvement of knowledge and clinical competencies in anesthesiology trainees after receiving a training session in ultrasound-assisted-neuraxial block.

Methods Participants were given a 1-hour lecture followed by hands-on workshop. They were then assessed individually 4-weeks later after completing a minimum of ten scans on parturients scheduled for discharge.

Our primary-outcome was to measure the improvement in knowledge based on score difference between a pre-test and a post-test. The secondary-outcome was to measure clinical skills improvement in identification of relevant sonoanatomy.

Results A total of 30 trainees participated in the study. The mean score for the pre-test and post test was 45% and 65% respectively. Post intervention, (20/30) trainees were able to identify a randomly assigned intervertebral space, (18/30) for the depth of the posterior-complex, and (23/30) had inappropriate skin marking.

Conclusions US-assisted-neuraxial blocks is rapidly becoming a necessary skill to acquire for the safe practice of anesthesia. The early implementation of an US-assisted-neuraxial block curriculum is easy and beneficial to improve knowledge and clinical skills in anesthesia training.