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.
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.
St. Joseph Regional Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey has been among the forefront of medical providers who are attempting to stem the U.S. opioid addiction epidemic where it often starts: the Emergency Department.
Medical imaging offers life-saving insights into patient health—and perhaps no other imaging modality is more versatile and mobile than point-of-care ultrasound.
In a fascinating dispatch from the Kurdish city of Duhok in northern Iraq, Dr. Christine Butts describes how point-of-care ultrasound is an indispensable tool for emergency physicians, especially when patients arrive unconscious and with no indication of an obvious malady.
Did you know that nearly half of all opioid overdoses involve a prescription?
Physicians are beginning to tackle the problem at ground zero: in the ED, where many patients receive their first prescription opioids.
With constant pressure on healthcare providers to improve the quality and efficiency of care while reducing costs, standardization of patient management is a logical step towards more streamlined services. Anesthesia is one area that is beginning to embrace this approach, combining regional nerve blocks with ultrasound guidance to improve both the quality and effectiveness of patient care while minimizing hospital stays.
A Sonosite SII point-of-care ultrasound system recently played a key role in an innovative procedure of thyroid surgery without the use of general anesthetic.
Dr. Rüdiger Eichholz, a consultant anesthetist working for private practice in Stuttgart, Germany, explained the case.
Anaesthetists working in perioperative medicine have increasingly taken a whole body approach to patient evaluation known as TUBE – Total Ultrasound Body Examination – thanks to the development of point-of-care ultrasound.