I started at Stony Brook in 2014 as faculty in the department of medicine, division of Pulmonary & critical Care. I started a bedside ultrasound education program and have since become the director for Ultrasound education. Ultrasound is a portable imaging modality which lets us "view" our patients’ conditions similar to how a stethoscope allows us to "listen", but with a vastly greater spectrum of application. Ultrasound has become a standard of care for internal medicine and pulmonary critical care practice.
Currently no standardized training paradigm exists for ultrasound (US) training at the fellowship education level. There are many barriers to US training including content volume, and time constraints within a busy fellowship. Furthermore, while growing in number, there still remains only a small number of ultrasound trained faculty for such education.
Blended Learning is an educational model that integrates multimedia technology-based learning such as simulation with traditional live instructor-led learning. This approach has been shown to be effective in limited medical education studies, however no existing Blended Learning model exists for Ultrasound (US) education at the level of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine (PCCM) Fellowship.
Given that this model incorporates asynchronous simulation based learning, we believe the mentioned barriers of teaching a large content of material under time constraints by a paucity of instructors can be overcome using this teaching paradigm; All the while without losing the benefits of real- time leaning of application of this point of care imaging modality by experienced clinicians.
My project aims to evaluate the efficacy of a Blended Learning US education program and to compare this method’s efficacy to that of a traditional faculty- led education model.
Below is a short summary of how this work has been presented nationally:
8/2017: I received a grant from the Miriam and David Donoho Academy of Clinical & Educational Scholars grant: A New Paradigm for Ultrasound Education. With this grant I was able to start designing my education courses & started conducting the "Traditional" courses.
4/2018: I pitched my work to a company called Sonosim which is a large company which deals in simulation equipment. With an equipment grant from this company, i received $12,375 worth of simulation equipment and was able to begin the "Blended learning" courses which were designed to include simulation in addition to "traditional" methods.
4/4/19: Kazi Ullah & Sahar Ahmad. A Blended Learning Model for Ultrasound Education in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Fellowship. Northeast Group on Educational Affairs (NEGEA) Annual Conference. Philadelphia, PA.
2019: Submitted to the American Thoracic Society (ATS) abstract competition.
1/20/20: Published in the ATS Innovations in Fellowship Education 2020 Highlights Book:
Ahmad S, Fei A, Ullah K, Patel R. A Blended Learning Paradigm for Pulmonary and Critical Care Fellowship Ultrasound Education.
This is published online.
Also in 2020: I submitted a manuscript to the journal, BMC Medical Education, which is an open access journal publishing original peer-reviewed research articles in relation to the training of healthcare professionals, including undergraduate, postgraduate, and continuing education. The journal has a special focus on curriculum development, evaluations of performance, assessment of training needs and evidence-based medicine.
Follow up on this manuscript very much delayed due to covid pandemic. please note that I serve as the director of medical intensive care unit (ICU) operations at our university Hospital, inclusive of COVID- 19 intensive care; Since the onset of the pandemic, my work efforts became essentially 100% clinical & ICU administrative, this effort continues and I intend to re- address this project for publication in Summer, 2021.
I look forward to returning to this long-standing work for which I am highly passionate, & I am confident in the potential to publish it.
