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Family Medicine Call for Papers: Theme Issue on Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) in Family Medicine Education

Submission Deadline: January 15th, 2026

May 16, 2025Family Medicine is pleased to announce a call for papers for an upcoming theme issue focused on the integration of Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) into family medicine education and training.

Point-of-Care Ultrasound is rapidly becoming an essential skill for family physicians, enhancing diagnostic accuracy, improving procedural safety, and expanding the scope of care across diverse clinical settings. Recognizing its growing role, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) now includes POCUS as a required skill within family medicine residency training. In parallel, the American Board of Family Medicine (ABFM) has announced the importance of POCUS in its requirements of a family physician.

For this theme issue, Family Medicine welcomes submissions that focus on:

  • Curriculum development for medical students, residents, and faculty with an emphasis on longitudinal POCUS curricula
  • Strategies for implementing POCUS into residency programs
  • Barriers to integrating POCUS into training and clinical environments and solutions to overcoming them
  • Billing considerations in a residency clinic
  • Faculty development strategies and efforts designed to help faculty achieve competency in POCUS
  • Advocating for resources and faculty time to teach
  • Development and application of hands-on and written tools for assessing resident competency in POCUS
  • Methodologies to perform quality assurance in a learning environment
  • Use of innovative teaching modalities including simulation and artificial intelligence
  • Narrative reflections or stories that highlight the clinical impact of POCUS in family medicine.

We welcome original research, brief reports, narrative essays, and FM Focus infographic submissions. Authors should follow the author guidelines provided on the Family Medicine journal website: https://journals.stfm.org/familymedicine/.

Submissions from educators and researchers in all settings, including community-based and resource-limited environments, are encouraged. We are especially interested in contributions that demonstrate evaluation of practical training models that can be adapted to a variety of settings.

Submit using Family Medicine's Online Manuscript Submission System. The deadline to submit is January 15, 2026.

Any questions, email: fmeditor@stfm.org

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