Getting the Edge on Diagnosis
Part 1 of our compelling 6 part series.
The Floating Doctors set up a mobile clinic in the village community of Bahia Grande on the Panamanian coastline. See Dr. Ben La Brot use the Edge system for the first time as he performs a gallbladder scan on an elderly woman with abdominal pain.
Those few simple words: 'would you like to watch?' show just how profound a change hand-carried ultrasound is bringing to the relationship between clinician and patient.
Dr. Ben La Brot of Floating Doctors puts a new Edge system through it's paces as he uses the technology to judge the severity of…
Gustavino's story
Part 2 of our compelling 6 part series.
The second video in this extraordinary series shows Gustavino, a frail boy with a fast deteriorating heart condition living high up in the mountains, 5 hour's hard trek from Pueblo Nuevo, Panama. Making the journey on foot, Floating Doctors founder, Dr. Ben La Brot defies the geography and other obstacles to link up Gustavino's medical needs and recovery with cardiologists hundreds of miles away.
High up in the mountains above Pueblo Nuevo, Panama, the young boy Gustavino struggles with an unknown heart defect leaving him short of breath, weak…
Mind's eye view
Part 3 of our compelling 6 part series.
In a makeshift clinic at a coastal community in Panama, Mackenzie, one of Floating Doctors young volunteers from Yale checks out a headmaster's kidney problem, her first examination using ultrasound. The ease and speed with which she familiarizes herself with the machine and gets the patient's kidney up on screen is remarkable. The clarity of the sonogram gives the physicians the information on which they decide treatment for patient Rigoberto's painful inflammation.
School teacher Rigoberto is struggling with pain from a kidney problem. Dr…
Spreading the Vision
Part 4 of our compelling 6 part series.
Panamanian panteras, or midwives, come together in a remote community to learn how to use hand-carried ultrasound scanners. Guided by a medical student from UCI, and using Sonosite Edge machines, they soon see how to recognise the placenta and position of the baby on screen, a live view that will alert them to potential delivery difficulties and other pregnancy complications.
A group of eager Panamanian midwives, 'parteras', are shown how to use ultrasound machines in their own remote communities for the first time. UCI medical students help…
Natividad wins Trauma II designation
Surgical services staff applauds at a ceremony on Monday marking Natividad Medical Center's designation as a Level II Trauma Center for Monterey County. To help them in their work, trauma center staff has 51 pieces of new equipment. Walls singles out Sonosite portable ultrasound as one of his favorite pieces of equipment.:
Sonosite portable ultrasound machine.
"It can instantly look inside your abdoman and chest to see if there's bleeding. It allows us to do a 'fast exam.' In a few seconds, I can look in both sides of your abdomen, around your heart ... and tell the trauma surgeon whether…
More from the front of the Ebola fight in Africa
Penn doctor going back for second tour fighting Ebola in Africa
Henwood in the protective gear that prevented her use of a stethoscope, with the ultrasound machine she used to check patients instead.
After spending five weeks working in an Ebola treatment unit, Dr Trish Henwood is going back for a second tour fighting Ebola in Africa.
She feels the work is vitally important, that great progress is being made, that the virus can be stopped, and that America must continue its support in fighting the deadly virus and epidemic.
She spent five weeks in Bong County, a remote area in Northern…
Global Health: Teaching Ultrasound in El Salvador
It is sometimes easy to forget how privileged we are to have access to modern conveniences, healthcare technologies and services. Fortunately, at Sonosite, we enjoy supporting many adventurous care providers who share their skills in resource limited countries. One such Doctor is Dr Jennifer Chao. Upon her return from El Salvador we received this informative email:
On May 19 and 20th, twenty-one physicians in El Salvador participated in a 2 day paediatric bedside ultrasound course at Benjamin Bloom Children's Hospital in San Salvador, El Salvador. This is the fourth time that such a course…
Global Health: Teaching ultrasound in Malawi - Dr Bergman
Global Health is more than providing medical care in resource limited countries. To create sustainable global health, four physicians from Contra Costa Family Medicine residency traveled to Malawi to do an ultrasound training for Malawian clinicians. They were kind enough to send us lots of photos and the following summary:
For the past five years, Contra Costa has taught a comprehensive point-of-care ultrasound course for its Family Medicine residents. While these skills have become quite useful in the hospital and the clinic in the US, their ultrasound skills have become particularly…
Ultrasound Guidance Enables More Difficult Peripheral Vein Access
This Philly.com story on the advantages of ultrasound needle guidance and Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's findings is not only informative but is written in a particularly engageing style accessible to a wide readership. An informed public goes a long way in helping to reinforce the value of clinical ultrasound's multiple benefits.Here is an excerpt from the article by Philadelphia Inquirer staff writer Stacey Burling:. . . An emergency physician at George Washington University Hospital found that use of central lines, the fallback when the staff can't connect to a peripheral vein,…
Astronaut Buzz Aldrin Takes "One Small Step for Scan..."
Ultrasound researcher and Henry Ford Hospital physician Scott Dulchavsky, MD, PhD, was recently inducted into the National Space Technology Hall of Fame for techniques his team developed to empower point-of-care ultrasound. He is working with Sonosite to modify ultrasound training methods developed for the space programme for point-of-care applications on Earth.In this photo, he is using a Sonosite S-MSK to demonstrate the technology to Astronaut Buzz Aldrin. Dr. Aldrin [who holds a doctorate of science in astronautics from MIT] commented that ultrasound would be promising on future space…
Memorial Hermann
A Success StorySee why Memorial Hermann's physicians prefer driving with total vision, then find out how we can help
From Sceptic to Believer
Growing AwarenessWhen Dr. Bryan Matusic first started practicing, the block and neurostimulator alone were considered best practise and block success rates of 85% were the accepted norm. "I was using just my own senses and the stimulator," he says. "Even if I had a 10%-15% failure rate, I was still doing better than most."However, when he became a regional anaesthesiologist in 2010 and began performing orthopaedic nerve blocks exclusively at the Advanced Surgical Hospital, he recognised that even a 10% failure rate would be unacceptable. "We can't afford as many block failures here because we…
Dr. Jeff Gonzales' Story
Catching a bus shouldn't be life-threatening. But for one 23-year-old woman, running for the bus could have cost her everything.After rushing to hop on board, she fell unconscious, leaving her arm outstretched beyond the door. Not knowing this, the driver closed the door and drove to the next stop, about two-tenths of a mile away.The passenger was shocked awake by her AICD, which she wore because of a history of hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. As she regained consciousness, she realised her forearm was still outside of the bus.In the emergency department, the doctors quickly…