Ultrasound Plays Vital Role in Training Clinicians in Vietnam
Dr. Megan Thùy Vũ is a global surgery resident at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In addition to the five-year clinical general surgery programme, she has two additional years dedicated to cross-training in other specialties, including point-of-care ultrasound, orthopaedics, and OBGYN. Her professional interests include global paediatric surgery, trauma in combat and austere settings, and global surgical training and educational programme development. Dr. Vũ sent us this report about the International Paediatric Specialists Alliance for the Children of Vietnam (ISPAC-VN) and the…
Sonosite Joins the Fight Against Coronavirus in China
After the outbreak of COVID-19, commonly called coronavirus, Sonosite team members across China have stepped forward to support local clinicians in the diagnosis of coronavirus and to help control the epidemic’s spread. In the fight against coronavirus, ultrasound is a key tool for healthcare workers who are saving lives in this critical period. Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) provides rapid, non-invasive real-time scanning, and it is an ideal device for monitoring cardiopulmonary function in critically-ill patients.
Sonosite has sent support staff to the provinces of Hubei, Zhejiang,…
POCUS Profile: Dr Raj Tobin
Dr. Raj Tobin, Director & Head of the Department of Anaesthesiology at Max Super Specialty Hospital in Saket, New Delhi has 28 years of experience in anaesthesiology. We interviewed Dr. Tobin to learn about the various clinical applications and the benefits of using point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in her routine practise.How long you have been using ultrasound in your practise?My first introduction to ultrasound technology was in 2006 when I attended a regional anaesthesia workshop in New Delhi conducted by Dr. Manoj Karmakar from Chinese University, Hong Kong. It was an amazing…
Ultrasound Improves Renal Care at St. Helier Hospital
St Helier Hospital in the London borough of Sutton has one of the largest renal medicine departments in the UK, and relies on FUJIFILM Sonosite point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) systems to improve care and patient safety. Dr Pritpal Virdee, a senior registrar in the department, explained: “We have a very busy renal department offering a wide range of services to people with kidney conditions. We use POCUS throughout the department for both patient assessment and ultrasound-guided interventions–such as line or drain insertions, aspirations, biopsies – performing over 1,000 procedures every year…
MSK Pain and Prescribing Opioids
A new study published by the National Institutes of Health’s Journal of Pain reveals that first-time patients suffering from chronic MSK pain are prescribed opioids more often than non-drug treatments. Researchers analysed data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey between 2007 and 2015. The data came from 11,994 visits over the 9-year period.
They found that these patients were prescribed non-opioid drugs 40.2% of the time, with opioids being prescribed 21.5% of the time. In contrast, non-drug treatments (such as counseling, exercise programmes, diet and nutrition advice, and…
Sonosite M-Turbo Gets Plenty of Work in Vanuatu: Part Two
This post is the second part of Dr. Jonathan “Jono” Henry’s report from the Pacific nation of Vanuatu. Be sure to read the first chapter of his remarkable report.Out in the peripheries, supply chains fail frequently: depleted electrolyte reagents, exhausted medication supplies, emptied oxygen tanks, or a single broken part rendering the X-ray machine dormant for months on end. Power outages occur regularly, and disasters such as volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, and cyclones disrupt inter-island transport and retrieval plans. These interdependent systems running at maximum capacity on a small…
Nurse Educator Puts Sonosite iViz Ultrasound to Work in Ethiopia
Nurse educator Abigail Butts MS, RN, CCNS, CCRN is the Communications Project Manager of Three Roots International, a nonprofit that partners with communities in Ethiopia to cultivate community development and economic capacity by empowering families through education, health, and income generating activities. Abigail borrowed a Sonosite iViz through the Global Health Loaner programme. She returned from a mission from Ethiopia and sent us this report.
We partnered with the Ministry of Health in Ethiopia to set up a free mobile medical clinic in a rural area of Ethiopia near our project…
Pioneering Best Practise in Vascular Access with Point-of-Care Ultrasound
Alexandros Mallios is a vascular surgeon at the Institut Mutualiste Montsouris (IMM) hospital in Paris. For the last four years, he has pioneered the use of ultrasound-guided percutaneous arteriovenous fistula access in patients undergoing hemodialysis. Dr. Mallios explains why he believes point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) should be the standard of care for vascular access in all patients.
During my vascular surgical fellowship at the University of Oklahoma, it became clear to me that using ultrasound was fundamental to providing high quality care in hemodialysis patients. It helps to…
The AI Revolution is Coming in Emergency Care
U.S. News & World Report
Diku Mandavia, MD, FACEP, FRCPC, Chief Medical Officer at FUJIFILM Sonosite
Despite expansion in health insurance coverage, emergency rooms are seeing a larger and ageing population, sicker patients who arrive in immediate danger with more chronic conditions, physician shortages as care is expanded, a need for more expensive technical tools, and an unsustainable trend in costs and expenditures. Partial rescue from these challenges may be coming from the most unlikely of sources: artificial intelligence. These aren't robots, but smart apps and tools that can…
Centre for Medicare & Medicaid Implement New Rules for Shoulder Pain Diagnosis
Beginning on January 1, 2020, the Centre for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) launched a new appropriate use criteria (AUC) programme for advanced diagnostic imaging services provided to Medicare beneficiaries. The purpose of the new programme, enacted as part of the Protecting Access to Medicare Act (PAMA) signed into law in 2014, is to address the overutilisation of MRI, CT, nuclear medicine, and PET scans.
Shoulder pain, including suspected rotator cuff injury, is one of eight initial clinical areas CMS had identified to review for overutilisation and ordering patterns that are…
Australian Hospital Uses X-Porte to Identify Bone Fractures
An X-ray machine isn’t always necessary to image a broken bone. In an article published in the Queensland government’s healthcare site Gold Coast Health, Dr. Peter Snelling of Gold Coast University Hospital explains how he uses ultrasound to identify bone fractures in children. Dr. Snelling was granted a $159,000 grant to compare ultrasound and X-ray imaging for buckle fractures. Local Queensland news station Channel 9 also reported on Dr. Snelling’s work. Dr. Snelling uses a Sonosite X-Porte in the video.
Channel 9 report on using ultrasound to find bone fractures (video)
Ultrasound…
Ultrasound guided Regional Anaesthesia - a major component of ERAS: Dr. Ritesh Roy
Ultrasound guided regional anaesthesia (USGRA) in 21st century has set a new standard of perioperative care for a wide range of surgical sub-specialty procedures, including orthopaedic, general, thoracic, colourectal, breast, gynaecologic and cosmetic surgery. The use of Ultrasound guided regional anaesthesia has emerged as an important component of enhanced recovery after surgery (ERAS) protocols, designed to optimise patient co-morbidities before surgery, reduce stress responses after surgery, and promote early physical therapy and return to daily activities. ERAS…
Sonographer Brings POCUS Education to Guyana
RAD-AID International works to optimize access to medical imaging, radiology services, and nursing care and education in over 30 countries around the world. In a recent medical mission to Guyana, diagnostic registered sonographer Radha Persaud, RDMS, RDCS, RT joined a team that included a certified radiology nurse, two nurse practitioners, a radiologist, a radiology administrator, and a fourth-year medical student. Her team borrowed two Sonosite Edge portable ultrasound machines with transducers from the Global Health Loaner Pool. Radha sent FUJIFILM Sonosite this report detailing her…
POCUS for Emergency Medicine Helps Save Lives
Emergency physicians must make life-saving decisions as quickly as possible to choose the correct treatment and direct patients to an appropriate hospital. Emergency department chief Dr. Sylvain Benenati and emergency doctor Dr. David Sapir, both from Melun Hospital in France, discuss how the dynamic nature of point-of-care ultrasound makes it invaluable in these busy environments.
POCUS on the Road
Melun Hospital is located about 40 kilometers south of Paris. It is the headquarters of the urgent medical aid service (SAMU) for Seine et Marne—the biggest department in the Paris area—as…
Emergency Physician Promotes POCUS Education in Laotian Capital
Dr. Jeff Dan, MD is an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Baystate Medical Center, which serves as a regional campus for the University of Massachusetts Medical School. He recently returned from his third trip to Vientiane, Laos on behalf of the nonprofit group Health Frontiers. Two years ago, Health Frontiers began an emergency medicine residency training program. To help develop this program, Dr. Dan traveled with two emergency ultrasound fellows and two educational fellows to Laos to provide a survey course in emergency ultrasound. His team borrowed four M-Turbos for this…
Learning to Master Ultrasound-Guided Pain Control in Zambia
Consultant and trainee anesthetists from Surrey, England traveled to Lusaka, Zambia with a point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) system to train Zambian colleagues in ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia. Dr. Madankumar Narayanan describes the educational objectives of the visit and the enthusiastic response from doctors in Zambia, as the team demonstrated the benefits of ultrasound-guided interventions in classroom workshops and on patients.
Responding to a Need in Zambia
Anesthetic trainees in the UK often undertake an "out-of-program" fellowship to developing countries to expand…
Ultrasound Advances Research and Education in Uganda
Emergency physician Jessica Schmidt, MD, MPH, assistant professor at the School of Medicine and Public Health at University of Wisconsin, Madison, recently returned from a very productive visit to Uganda. Physicians at the University of Wisconsin Madison have partnered with physicians at Mbale Regional Referral Hospital and the Mbale Clinical Research Institute (MCRI), along with Atlas International, an NGO dedicated to improving health for children in Eastern Africa. The project is focused on creating a training and research programme in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in Mbale, as Dr.…
French Medical Mission Brings Hope to Moroccan Villagers
Every year, the isolated villages of the Atlas Mountains in Morocco wait with hopeful anticipation for the Solidarité Maroc medical caravan. Located near the town of Imilchil at elevations exceeding 2,300 meters, these villages do not have a permanent access to medical care, so the villagers must travel long distances to reach the nearest hospital.
Founded in 2007, Solidarité Maroc’s mission is to provide care to the most disadvantaged populations of this mountainous region. Solidarité Maroc provides services such as minor surgery, oral care, and distribution of drugs and medical equipment.…
Sonosite Ultrasound Technology in an African Village
Emergency physician Dr. Steven Boutrus was kind enough to write this article for FUJIFILM Sonosite about his use of ultrasound during a medical mission for Grace Dental and Medical Missions.
Boïffo is a rural village in the far north of Benin, West Africa. It is a farming village typical of this region, containing densely clustered, mud-walled houses in the village centre, surrounded by several miles of farmland in every direction. There are no public utilities such as electricity or running water, and the only government presence is the village chief. The region is dotted…
Doctors Use Paediatric Ultrasound in Bolivia
Paediatric cardiac anaesthesiologist Dr. Pablo Motta MD, FAAP recently returned from Bolivia on a medical mission for HeartGift, developed through a partnership between by Texas Children’s Hospital and Memorial Herman Children’s Hospital, both located in Houston, Texas, and la Fundación Incor. in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. The goal of this mission is provide free, world-class paediatric cardiac care to children from underserved areas of Santa Cruz, Bolivia and its surroundings. The long-term is to develop a local team to perform paediatric cardiovascular care that could work independently.The…