Anesthesiology

Dr. David B. Goodie, a Specialist Anesthetist with the Fiji Orthopaedic Outreach, recently returned from a weeklong charitable medical mission in Fiji. For this mission, Sonosite lent Dr. Goodie an M-Turbo, which he promptly put to good use at the Lautoka Hospital in Fiji. He writes:

The use of opioids in the ICU and the post-operative period is common, with patients often receiving opioids even after simple surgeries. Though opioids are effective in providing fast pain relief, the side effects of respiratory depression, cough suppression, confusion, drowsiness, nausea, vomiting and potential addiction make the sole reliance on opioids risky.

Time is of the essence in the emergency department, where a prompt diagnosis can literally mean the difference between life and death.

An advocate for the expansion of the use of point-of-care ultrasound, Dr. Yasmin Endlich is an anesthesiologist who practices medicine in Australia and regularly travels to Papua New Guinea to provide medical training to local physicians. Here, she explains why nerve blocks are a crucial tool in a rural anesthetist’s arsenal:

Ultrasound-guidance has proven invaluable for the regional neurosurgical center at the Salford Royal Hospital outside Manchester, England.

Dr. Ilyas Tugtekin, a consultant anesthetist from Ulm University Medical Center in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, travels to Kumasi, Ghana to help establish an ultrasound training center for doctors all over West Africa. 

Point-of-care ultrasound is playing an important role in the anesthesiology department at Spain’s Hospital Clinic of Barcelona. Dr.

Dr. Sameer Bhandari, a Consultant in Anesthesia and Intensive Care at Pinderfields General Hospital in Wakefield, England, plays an integral role in the company’s Complete Ultrasound-guided Regional Anesthesia Education (CURE) course. Here, he describes how he teaches ultrasound-guided regional blocks to physicians in the UK.