No, the RUF is open to practitioners (physicans and mid-levels) from all specialties who meet the prerequisites. Note that our curriculum is designed for generalists (e.g. emergency medicine and family medicine), however the flexibilty of the fellowship allows participants to focus on applications most relevant to their practice and interests. contact us for more details.

Yes, provided you meet the other prerequisites. We welcome applications from all healthcare professionals who are interested in advancing their PoCUS skills.

As a rule we do not accept applications from students or residents of North American training programs. These educationa programs are generally very intense and we feel learners should not be distracted while studying for their primary degrees or specialities. That said, we are willing to make exceptions.

Registrars from non-North American programs, or senior residents or fellows in the North American style system who have time specifically available for extracurricular or fellowship study are welcome to apply. Contact us to discuss your specific situation.

Fellows should plan to dedicate 5-6 hours each week to fellowship studies. This includes a combination of self-study time, scanning practice in clinical settings, online case review & discussion, and one to one faculty review meetings.

Flexibility is our strong suit, and we understand that life happens: parental leave, family emergencies, once in a lifetime exotic adventures, and sudden changes in clinical or administrative workload (to name a few), can happen with little warning.

Although we would strongly recommend against beginning a fellowship while anticipating one of these events, the RUF is able to accommodate should these types of eventualities arise. Fellows are welcome to arrange a leave of absence whenever they wish, for durations as short as one month, up to 2 years.

In cases where more than 12 (active) months of fellowship are required to complete the program, an additional year-long extension(s) can be arranged for a nominal administrative cost.

Flexibly.

Meeting arrangements are left to the discretion of each fellow. Fellows contact a faculty member of their choosing directly, to arrange a mutually acceptable time. Meetings can also be cancelled or rescheduled up to 24 hours in advance without penalty.

The RUF recommends all fellows start by meeting with each of our generalist-faculty members once, to get a sense of who each faculty member is: their strengths, special interests and teaching style. After that, the fellow is welcome to schedule with whomever they choose.

Meetings are one hour in duration and hosted over a videoconference platform of choice with screensharing capabilities. (e.g. Discord and Zoom are currently the most common choices.)

While the RUF highly recommends spreading out One to One Meetings as evenly as possible during a fellowship, fellows are ultimately in control. Fellows may choose to schedule an extra meeting in advance or following a three week holiday, or schedule meetings according to their travelling "in zone / out of zone" work schedules, etc.

The RUF is designed to be affordable and qualifies for most education grants. There are two components to the total program cost:

1. Personal Ultrasound
Fellows are required to own their own personal device for the duration of the fellowship. The RUF does not sell hardware, however we offer unbiased suggestions and advice during the process.

2. Tuition
Exact tuition depends on which Tier of the program you select. (A rough estimate would be between 2 to 4 times the cost of an intermediate 4-day course in Canada e.g. EDE2) In terms of cost per hour, we believe the RUF is by a wide margin, the most cost-effective accredited PoCUS education program in North America.

Contact us to obtain a quote.

Yes, many of our fellows have secured partial or full funding for the entire program through a number of regional educational grants available in different countries. For a list of potential funding sources, please see our funding section.

Unfortunately we do not offer in-house discounts or scholarships. We encourage you to look for scholarships and bursaries from other organizations available to you based on where you live and practice. We are happy to provide a letter of acceptance and invoice to assist you in applying for education grants and scholarships.

Tuition is due in full prior to fellowship commencement.

We generally do not offer installment plans, however in exceptional circumstances we may offer asplit payment. A 5% surcharge will apply in this case.

We are accredited by the Canadian College of Family Physicians, one of major accreditation systems in Canada. The CFPC has a reciprocal agreement with the AAFP and professional colleges in many other countries.

This Group Learning program has been certified by the College of Family Physicians of Canada for up to 152 Mainpro+ credits.

Tuition is due in full prior to fellowship commencement.

We generally do not offer installment plans, however in exceptional circumstances we may offer a split payment. A 5% surcharge will apply in this case.

The short answer is no, we are not an AEMUS eligibile program. At this time we are not planning to pursue eligibility.

The AEMUS exam (an American exam / certification in emergency medicine fellowship-level PoCUS) is available to American or Canadian emergency physician specialists, training in AEMUS-eligible brick and mortar PoCUS fellowships.

The RUF, a fellowship available to international practitioners, delivered virtually and serving flexible curriculum content to generalists and all speciality backgrounds, would need to make fundamental structural changes to meet current AEMUS eligibility, and to the exclusion of non North-American, non-emeregency medicine practitoners.

As such we have determined that AEMUS eligibility requirements are too far removed from the current mission and strengths of the RUF. Instead, we encourage those set on AEMUS exam eligibility to seek one of the excellent EM PoCUS fellowship options designed for the qualification.

No, the Remote Ultrasound Fellowship does not include live group scanning as part of its curriculum.

Paradoxically, at advanced PoCUS education levels, fellows who learn via:

• independent scanning within their own practice
• recording clips and
• reviewing clips with mentors

will achieve mastery far more quickly and efficiently than via the traditional group-scanning format. (Watch this presentation for more details.) Following extensive evaluation the RUF designers determined that the time and financial cost of adding live group scanning into the curriculum does not justify any modest gains at the advanced PoCUS education level.

Alternatively, many of our faculty are willing to arrange extracurricular live scanning opportunities. e.g. a fellow might visit faculty in their place of work, and practice hands on skills at the bedside.

Additionally, certain personal-probes offer a live-stream feature. This permits a fellow to share their live scanning feed, with a faculty member for realtime feedback and advice.

In summary: our combined experience consistently confirms that live group scanning of healthy volunteers does not prove to be valuable at advanced levels of bedside ultrasound education. (This is in stark contrast to the critical role of live group scanning at the introductory through intermediate levels.)

The first step is to review this website thoroughly, particularly the prerequisites page.

Once complete please use the webform located on the contact page to introduce yourself and intiate the process.