The sonographic OODA loop: Proposing a beginner’s model for learning point-of-care ultrasound

Unlike practitioners of formal diagnostic sonography, point-of-care ultrasound users must often acquire basic ultrasound skills in far shorter time frames, with less time dedicated to obtaining mastery; therefore, they often rely on conceptual models to achieve this. There is currently no introductory model which point-of-care ultrasound users might adopt to describe the cognitive processes involved in acquiring a basic ultrasound image, and in learning point-of-care ultrasonography. We propose the ‘sonographic OODA loop’ in reference to Boyd’s observe–orient–decide–act (OODA) decision loop, as a model which can be used initially by ultrasound-naive clinicians to understand the cognitive and motor processes that occur when they acquire ultrasound images, and hopefully achieve greater insight into their early practice.