Background: Ultrasonography is a safe, non-invasive bedside tool used by providers to obtain real-time, dynamic images to support diagnostic guidance, therapeutic decisions, and procedural success. Point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) has demonstrated improved outcomes in states of critical illness such as trauma or shock and enhanced the command and accuracy of procedural skills. Despite these important measures, [...]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is becoming an important part of internal medicine (IM) residency training. Achieving competency requires performing a large volume of clinical exams which can be difficult within the constraints of residency. Often cited barriers include insufficient resident time and the interruption of daily workflow. Methods: Prospective cohort study within a 700-bed, quaternary [...]

Background: Little is known about how to effectively train residents with point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) despite increasing usage. This study sought to assess whether handheld ultrasound devices (HUDs), alongside a year-long lecture series, improved trainee image interpretation skills with POCUS. Methods: Internal medicine intern physicians (n=149) at a single academic institution from 2016-18 participated in the [...]

Background: The latest guidelines on parapneumonic effusion (PPE) management1 recommend immediate evaluation of PPE with ultrasound. Recognizing that bedside procedure services (BPSs) staffed with procedural hospitalists (proceduralists) are becoming the first point of ultrasound contact for many patients admitted with PPE our study sought to demonstrate that proceduralists can reliably agree with radiologists (viewed as [...]

Background: Imaging diagnostics such as CT and MRI are practically inaccessible to many of this developing nation’s 42 million citizens. Ultrasound, however, is more readily available but primarily limited to use in obstetrics. With proper training, the diagnostic utility of ultrasonography may be expanded to non-obstetric point-of-care examinations. In this study, we aimed to evaluate [...]

Background: Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is a pathology characterized by the formation of a blood clot inside the venous system. It comprises either distal vein thrombosis, but also proximal vein thrombosis (i.e. Femoral, Popliteal and Iliacal veins), which leads to a significant increase in complications of the disease, such as pulmonary thromboembolism (PE) and even [...]

Background: Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in adult hospitalized patients, with the incidence being reported as high as 7.2%. While evaluation of the cause of AKI is often necessary, in hospitalized patients the causes of AKI are more likely to be pre-renal or intrinsic. Previous studies have found that decreased renal perfusion, medications, radiographic [...]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is increasingly being used across medical specialties, improving diagnostic accuracy in numerous medical presentations and levels of acuity. Training in these skills is currently offered through major societies, but graduate medical POCUS training in internal medicine and family medicine is not common in US residencies. Therefore, we designed a two-week inpatient [...]

Background: We have markedly expanded Point-of-Care Ultrasound (PoCUS) education within our Internal Medicine residency program through multifaceted instructional interventions. But despite an increasing number of trainees familiar with PoCUS, there remains insufficient real-time clinical use and supervision due to a lack of formal PoCUS training and experience among attending faculty. Traditional PoCUS faculty development programs [...]

Background: POCUS is increasingly being used across medical specialties, and adds value to diagnostic accuracy for numerous pathologies and levels of acuity. Emergency Medicine providers were early adapters, providing examples of how POCUS increases patient satisfaction and diagnostic clarity (1, 2). Internal Medicine and Family Medicine have been slower to adopt this technology; however, general [...]