Learning MSKUS is akin to learning a musical instrument and practical competence is like getting to grade 5+. However, this particular instrument costs £3K for a basic model which gets you only to grade 1 and then around £13-15K for a model to get you to practical competence.

Like learning an instrument you’ll need regular practice (which means having a machine to hand) and regular lessons with a teacher. Courses are like master classes which can boost the learning pathway but competency comes from the hours and hours of week in, week out repetition.

Following the most efficient learning pathway and undertaking regular practice you can get to practical competence in all areas in 18 months (less if focusing on one or fewer areas). A lot of people waste a lot of time focusing on the 5% when the majority of cases seen >

come into the 95% (and where other diagnostic modalities can cover those rarer bases). That LEP is highly unlikely to be PIN entrapment so learning to scan for it is wasted time when one’s cuff visualisation needs to be improved. Same with indirect RF head injuries (get an MRI)

We need to do better at focusing on the common things where POCUS is especially beneficial. This then becomes about condition-driven learning informing the core structures that we need to learn to scan.