POCUS Profile: Dr. Farah Chaudhry
Dr. Farah Chaudhry, Consultant in Sexual and Reproductive Health for Leeds Sexual Health, West Yorkshire, describes how point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) allows her to give informed and clear assurances to women using long-acting contraception.I spent 10 years as a GP (general practitinoer) in Leeds, developing a special interest and expertise in women’s health, in particular complex contraception. After that, I decided to pursue the specialty of sexual and reproductive health (SRH) full time. I managed the complex contraception clinics in Kirklees and Bradford for Locala Community…
Disaster Relief Team Borrows Ultrasound For Flood Victims
During recent floods in the southern Indian province of Kerala, the Kerala Flood Disaster relief team sent by Kasturba Medical College, Manipal borrowed a Sonosite M-Turbo ultrasound machine to assist in assessing and triaging flood victims.
The team arrived in Chengannur, one of the worst-afflicted areas of the flood zone, and began working at the District Hospital.
Dr. Jayaraj Balakrishnan, Professor and Head of Emergency Medicineat Kasturba Medical College, reported that the machine was used to assess roughly 570 flood victims who were treated in…
Ultrasound in Pain Management: By Dr. G.P. Dureja
A decade ago, interventional procedures were performed under fluoroscopy or CT guidance, and few interventions were done blindly through landmark technique by pain management practitioners. Today, invasive procedures & joints injections are no longer performed blind and potential complications like pneumothorax, intravascular injections can be avoided with the help of real-time ultrasonography.
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Dr. G.P. Dureja is the Head & Director at Delhi Pain Management Centre, India’s 1st dedicated and leading Pain Hospital…
AORA India 2019
We are going to attend Academy of Regional Anaesthesia of India (AORA 2019). Please register http://aoraindia2019.com. Subsidised registration fee for countries with special status. Learn more.
Ultrasound-Guided Nerve Block, an ED Opioid Alternative
Anaesthesiology News
Alexis LaPietra, DO
With the opioid epidemic ever present in US hospitals, emergency physicians working with anaesthesiologists to manage pain in the ED setting are on the front lines of this urgent public health crisis. Alexis LaPietra, DO, a medical director for pain management in the emergency department of St. Joseph’s Healthcare System, shares some key takeaways and lessons learned when developing and implementing a formal programme focused on novel alternatives to opioid prescriptions for pain. The ALTOSM (Alternatives To Opioids) programme uses alternatives such…
Clinical Utility of Portable Ultrasound in Breast Imaging
Globally, breast cancer kills more than half a million women per year. Timely detection can make a drastic difference in survival rates, and ultrasound imaging is gaining popularity in early detection of breast cancer.
Portable ultrasound machines are used for routine breast screening as they are inexpensive, readily available, easy to carry, and don’t require any special preparation for the patient.
Since ultrasound is real-time, cost-effective, and doesn’t expose patients to unnecessary ionizing radiation, it is the ideal tool for the detection/evaluation of breast lumps or other…
Ultrasound for Neonate & Paediatric Care
Ultrasound imaging has become imperative in neonatal & paediatric intensive care unit (NICU& PICU) for the evaluation and delivery of care.The introduction of a high-quality, reasonably priced, portable ultrasound unit has now made it possible for neonatologists & paediatricians to rapidly obtain diagnostic information that can be extremely helpful in the evaluation of a critically ill neonate or child.Because of the delicacy of new-born infants (particularly critically ill or premature babies), transport to other areas of the hospital for USG, CT, or MR imaging is often difficult…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Xavier Sala-Blanch
Point-of-care ultrasound is playing an important role in the anaesthesiology department at Spain’s Hospital Clinic of Barcelona. Dr. Xavier Sala-Blanch, Senior Doctor and Head of Section in the hospital’s Department of Anaesthesiology and Resuscitation and Associate Professor of Anatomy in the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Barcelona, discussed how the use of ultrasound technology has increased in recent years, and the benefits it offers to the clinicians and patients."The University Clinic of Barcelona is an 800-bed, level three hospital serving a local population of around 300,000…
POCUS Profile: Dr. Sameer Bhandari
Dr. Sameer Bhandari, a Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at Pinderfields General Hospital in Wakefield, England, plays an integral role in the company’s Complete Ultrasound-guided Regional Anaesthesia Education (CURE) course. Here, he describes how he teaches ultrasound-guided regional blocks to physicians in the UK.My relationship with Sonosite and ultrasound goes back many years, and I routinely use its systems in daily practise. I was approached to join the CURE faculty a few years ago as I was already running some ultrasound-guided regional anaesthesia training courses, and was…
Portable Ultrasound Helps Researchers Understand Sharks
Every year the world's oceans lose roughly 100 million sharks due to human hunting. The big problem? Scientists don't know how to manage the population back. As an apex predator, sharks regulate smaller predators in the food chain, helping to ensure the oceans' ecosystem remains balanced and stable. Unfortunately, the global shark population has decreased by 90%, which means that understanding and protecting sharks is seriously at risk. That's why OCEARCH, a non-profit created to change how the scientific community studies large ocean animals, is interested…
A Letter from Dr. Samuel Abelson
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 programme, we have borrowed multiple loaner machines to use in teaching.In 2016, Project Medishare was able to purchase a discounted M-Turbo through Sonosite SoundCaring and bring it to Haiti. This past spring, we once again were able to donate two M-Turbo ultrasound machines to the ICU/PICU staff at Hospital Bernard…
Reducing Costs and Increasing Care Quality With Ultrasound-Guided PIVs
How does ultrasound-guided vascular access improve care and reduce costs? In a new article in Axis Imaging, FUJIFILM Sonosite's Chief Medical Officer Diku Mandavia writes about how Matthew Ostroff, ARNP, a vascular access specialist at St. Joseph’s Healthcare System, a 700-bed hospital in Paterson, N.J., chartered St. Joseph's recently implemented ultrasound-guided vascular access programme in its emergency department, which ranks as the second busiest in the nation."Procedural ultrasound…acts as a visual GPS that allows clinicians to map the patient’s blood vessels and identify the…
When IV Insertion Seems Impossible
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.At the best, a “difficult stick”—that is, a patient whose veins are difficult to insert a needle into—presents a problem that involves multiple needle pricks (with increasing pain after each attempt), frustrated and flustered medical staff, and a delay in treatment. At worst, a difficult stick can mean mounting medical complications as dehydration worsens; and the eventual…
When IV Insertion Seems Impossible
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Any medical professional with hospital experience knows how crucial successfully inserting a peripheral IV can be. Getting fluids and medications into a critically ill or injured patient can make or break the effectiveness of their treatment.
At the best, a patient with challenging vasculature that involves multiple insertion attempts can frustrate and fluster medical staff while causing the patient to experience pain. At worst, a tricky vein can mean mounting medical complications as dehydration worsens; and the eventual…
Portable Ultrasound: Increasingly Common & Versatile
Point-of-care ultrasound is efficient. It is non-invasive. It is safe. And fortunately for everyone, it is becoming more and more ubiquitous.
Most of the public is introduced to ultrasound when it was used to begin monitoring fetal and maternal health during pregnancy, but in fact, ultrasound’s utility has since spread into nearly every medical field. Used for diagnosis and for guiding procedures, ultrasound offers excellent imaging capabilities with minimally invasive, efficacious diagnosis abilities without exposing patients to ionizing radiation.
These days, ultrasound is…
Ultrasound: Increasingly Common & Versatile
Point-of-care ultrasound is efficient. It is non-invasive. It is safe. And fortunately for everyone, it is becoming more and more ubiquitous. Most of the public is introduced to ultrasound when it was used to begin monitoring foetal and maternal health during pregnancy, but in fact, ultrasound’s utility has since spread into nearly every medical field. Used for diagnosis and for guiding procedures, ultrasound offers excellent imaging capabilities with minimally invasive, efficacious diagnosis abilities without exposing patients to ionising radiation. These days, ultrasound is…
Hospital Continues Efforts to Reduce Opioid Over-Prescription
St. Joseph Regional Medical Centre 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.FUJIFILM Sonosite has been delighted to work with St. Joseph’s anaesthetic specialists to provide ultrasound imaging at the point of care, which can help physicians locate nerves that can benefit from a nerve block. Combined with other analgesics (even traditional OTC medications like Advil), these multi-modal pain control methods have helped St. Joseph cut their opioid…
User Stories: Sports Medicine Clinic Physician Uses Sonosite Ultrasound
Dr. Adam Garnett, a sports and exercise medicine (SEM) consultant at the Jersey Sports Medicine Clinic, divides his time between treating rugby players suffering from acute trauma injuries and triathletes and runners with overuse injuries. He explained how the use of point-of-care ultrasound has changed the way he manages sports injuries.My interest in sports and exercise medicine started 20 years ago when I was a GP in Bath and got involved with the rugby club. After moving to Jersey, I joined the Jersey Sports Medicine Clinic, and also developed my own private practise. I look after a lot…
Sports and Exercise Medicine Benefits from the Use of Ultrasound
Point-of-care ultrasound is an essential tool for Dr. Mark Ridgewell, an early pioneer of sport and exercise medicine (SEM). Through the course of his career, Mark has worked with many amateur and professional sportsmen and women, beginning with rugby and including three years with England Cricket and eight years with the Wales football team.The first SEM consultant to be registered in Wales, Dr. Ridgewell continues to work with the LTA and WTA women’s tennis tour every summer, and with Welsh Olympic and Commonwealth athletes across many sports under the Sport Wales banner. Mark also leads an…
Supporting REBOA with POCUS
Resuscitative Endovascular Balloon Occlusion of the Aorta (REBOA) is an emergency technique for temporarily blocking the blood flow to the lower body in the event of subdiaphragmatic internal bleeding.A guidewire and balloon-like device are inserted into the aorta via the femoral artery and, as it inflates, the balloon blocks the aorta, reducing blood flow to the injured sites but maintaining it to vital organs such as the heart and brain. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) can be used to guide and verify the position of the guidewire and balloon during the procedure, and is a preferred…