Objectives: Telepresent education is emerging as an important and accessible way to teach medical students. Ultrasound education is becoming increasingly integrated into medical school curricula. Our aim is to show that teaching ultrasound via teleguidance is as effective as traditional in-person methods.

Methods: Peer instructors taught 47 second-year medical students ocular ultrasound either via teleguidance or traditional in-person methods using the Butterfly iQ+ portable ultrasound probe. Proficiency was assessed by change in knowledge score and objective structured clinical exam (OSCE). Change in confidence, overall experience, and experience with a peer instructor was measured using a 5-point Likert scale. Two one-sided t-test (TOST) was used to measure equivalency between the two groups. The null hypothesis that the two groups were different was rejected when p < 0.05.

Results: The teleguidance group performed as well as the traditional in-person group in terms of knowledge change, confidence change, OSCE time and OSCE scores (p = 0.010, p = 0.005, p = 0.005, p = 0.0015, respectively). The teleguidance group rated the experience highly overall (4.06/5), but less than the traditional group (p = 0.448). Peer instruction was overall rated 4.35/5.

Conclusion: Peer-instructed teleguidance is an effective method of teaching ultrasound to medical students.