Doctors working in the eight-bed Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at the Ramón y Cajal University Hospital in Madrid use point-of-care ultrasound extensively to evaluate the condition of critically ill children, and find it essential to their work. Dr. José Luis Vázquez Martínez, Head of Post-Surgical Critical Care at Hospital Ramón y Cajal has over 25 years’ experience in pediatric intensive care medicine.
The following is a letter from Dr. Samuel Abelson, an emergency medicine physician who lives in Minneapolis.
Four years ago, Project Medishare began teaching point-of-care ultrasound to the staff at Hospital Bernard Mevs in Port Au Prince. Through the Sonosite Global Health program, we have borrowed multiple loaner machines to use in teaching.
by Dr. Ben LaBrot, founder of Floating Doctors
As of this writing, my wife is pregnant with our first child, and the novelty has long since worn off. After looking after so many other people’s pregnancies, it’s a novel experience to be on the other end of the ultrasound probe, as it were.
Any medical professional with hospital experience knows how crucial peripheral IV access can be. Getting fluids and medications into a critically ill or injured patient can make or break the effectiveness of their treatment.
During the Summer of 2017, a group of healthcare professionals – the majority from the Hospital Clínico Universitario Virgen de la Arrixaca (HCUVA) in Murcia, Spain – travelled to Kenya in partnership with the Spanish NGO Cirugía Solidaria.
They brought along surgical equipment – from beds to lamps to scalpels – to create a first-rate hospital set-up, most of which was donated by HCUVA.
Point-of-care (POC) ultrasound has a great deal to offer clinicians specialising in sports and exercise medicine, and we have some stories to share with you. Earlier this year, we published Dr Adam Garnett’s experience using POC ultrasound at the Jersey Sports Medical Clinic, and Sonosite Spain recently released a video – with subtitles!
The Race Across America is billed as the world’s toughest bicycle race; a non-stop, coast-to-coast, transcontinental trek from Oceanside, California to Annapolis, Maryland. Racers cycle for over 3,000 miles across 12 states of frequently arid terrain, and climb 170,000 feet through three mountain ranges, with the fastest teams finishing in just over five days, and solo racers in under eight.
The Clinique Juge is a Marseille clinic specialising in ambulatory surgery. Combining regional anaesthesia with focused pre- and post-operative care, the clinic aims to allow patients to return home soon after orthopaedic surgery, often on the same day as their procedure. Anaesthetist Dr Philippe Grillo explains the benefits of this approach, and the role of point-of-care ultrasound in ensuring effective nerve blocks and post-operative pain relief.
The answer varies from hospital to hospital, but we usually see Emergency Medicine, Cardiology, Critical Care and Anaesthesiology rounding out the heavyweight users of bedside ultrasound.