Fig. 3.
Acquisition of basic lung ultrasound competence in 100 trainees from Brazil, China, France, and Uruguay. Acquisition of competence is based on successive and comparative evaluations performed independently in the same patient by trainees and experts. Each evaluation is separated by five ultrasound examinations performed by the trainee and supervised by the expert. The agreement between trainees and experts for basic ultrasound patterns is expressed as percentages of concordance (%) between trainees and experts for all examined lung regions (A), normal aeration (B), interstitial–alveolar syndrome (C), and lung consolidation (D). In each panel, 95% CI are represented. Red numbers indicate the number of lung regions classified by the expert for a given evaluation. Percentages indicate the concordance between trainees and expert, with the expert’s classification serving as reference. A total of 7,330 lung regions were examined: 2,543 were classified as normally aerated, 2,898 were classified as characterized by interstitial–alveolar syndrome, and 1,889 were classified as characterized by lung consolidation. Acquisition of competence over time independently of the ultrasound pattern (A) was statistically analyzed using Fisher’s exact test between each successive evaluation with corresponding P values.