Background: Recently coined the “fifth pillar to the bedside physical exam” in a 2018 JAMA article, a growing number of physicians have started incorporating point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) into their clinical assessments. Many medical schools have already started to integrate POCUS into their educational curriculum. With the emergence of more affordable handheld solutions, practicing physicians and [...]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become a ubiquitous tool in clinical care. However, the optimal timing and methods of POCUS integration into medical education remains unknown. We aim to identify and evaluate the baseline competency, improvement and feedback from trainees after participating the POCUS curriculum. Methods: In 2017, National Taiwan University hospitalists established a standardized [...]

Background: The lack of competent teaching faculty is a major limitation to the expansion of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in the field of inpatient and outpatient medicine despite the availability of approved training programs. Programmatic research demonstrates that participants have increased knowledge, skill and confidence immediately after a course. Currently there is insufficient data on long [...]

Background: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become increasingly popular in medicine due to its ease of access, reduction in need for consultative ultrasonography, and usefulness in diagnosing common conditions [3,4,5]. The use of POCUS in the inpatient settings of emergency rooms, ICU, Surgical and Medical Wards has been established [3,4,5] The availability of ultrasound machines and [...]

Background: Few studies have compared the effectiveness of brief training courses on point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) skill acquisition of novice faculty vs. trainees. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the change in POCUS image interpretation skills and confidence of novice faculty vs. trainees after a 1-day POCUS training course. Methods: A 1-day POCUS training [...]

Background: The accelerating integration of point of care ultrasound (POCUS) training into UME and GME curricula puts academic faculty untrained in POCUS at a disadvantage. Educating providers in POCUS during the clinical day is challenging. A faculty development program that creates a safe learning space for providers with variable schedules and unpredictable clinical responsibilities would [...]

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: The role of bedside ultrasound to evaluate traumatic cardiac injury and aortic aneurysm rupture is well established. However, there is a lack of robust data to support the accuracy of use of immediate ultrasonography procedures at the point of care to detect other cardiovascular conditions. Aim of this umbrella meta-analysis was to evaluate a [...]

Background: Central venous catheters (CVC), including temporary dialysis catheters, are a relatively frequent procedure needed in the inpatient setting. Historically in our institution, CVC have been placed in the intensive care unit (ICU) by critical care staff or in the radiology suite by interventional radiology staff. The reasons for this placement preference have included the [...]

Background: Tissue pathology plays an integral role in the diagnosis of various conditions, especially malignancy. Traditionally biopsy procedures, including core needle biopsy (CNB), have been performed by specialists under imaging guidance. They are traditionally done in special procedure rooms/suites–which come with an added cost of nursing staff, transportation and equipment. Meanwhile hospitalists are increasingly becoming [...]