Teaching laryngeal electromyography

To achieve consensus in the methodology, interpretation, validity, and clinical application of laryngeal electromyography (LEMG), a working group on neurolaryngology from the European Laryngological Society (ELS) was founded in 2010. The main task of the working group was to teach key techniques like LEMG procedures. The objective of this study was to collect information on the teaching techniques used and describe them. A multicenter registry was created to analyze the data collected from LEMGs in 14 departments. We screened how often different departments participated in teaching events. Teaching events were classified retrospectively: presentations at conferences and meetings; workshops with hands-on training on patients; workshops with hands-on training on animal models; workshops with hands-on training on anatomic specimens; and supervision by experts to perform LEMG together. Both, supervision to perform LEMG together and the total number of PCA–LEMGs (r = 0.713), as well as supervision to perform LEMG together and the PCA/total-number-of-LEMG ratio (r = 0.814) were correlated significantly (p < 0.05). Similarly, the sum of teaching events was correlated significantly with the total number of PCA–LEMGs (r = 0.605), and so did the sum of teaching events with the PCA/total-number-of-LEMG ratio (r = 0.704). Participation in hands-on training in humans was correlated significantly with the PCA/total-number-of-LEMG ratio (r = 0.640). The data presented herein suggest that multimodal teaching techniques are most effective. To promote multimodal learning an interactive webpage (http://​www.​lemg.​org) providing videos and animations, and the possibility to discuss cases with other experts was established.