Introduction to Emergency Medicine Ultrasound – 3 Day POCUS Course (AAA, Lung, BELS)
MODULES: AAA, LUNG, BELS
DESCRIPTION
The Australasian College for Emergency Medicine (ACEM) now supports all trainees to understand and perform a range of simple bedside ultrasound scans. The Introductory PoCUS-EM 3 day (Option A) course teaches you how to use an ultrasound machine to identify the most important of the life threatening illnesses.
This course is designed to take complete novices[, or those wanting a refresh, through the basics of machine familiarisation, probe manipulation, and normal anatomy. We teach simple protocols to identify dangerous aortic aneurysms, major heart and common lung pathologies.
Short courses start your credentialing and journey to competence. However, competence requires extensive practice - but with this course you will know what, how and where to start. You will be able to recognise ultrasound anatomy and interpret other people’s images.
CONTENT
We combine short lectures, short demonstrations and lengthy practical scanning of healthy volunteers, using tutor-student ratios of no more than 1:4. We will use case-based discussions to teach interpretation and integration into clinical situations.
This 3 day course will include the following modules.
- Ultrasound Physics and Machine optimisation
- AAA - normal anatomy and significant pathology
- LUNG - Basic Lung ultrasound in the breathless patient
- BELS - Focused (Basic) Echo in Life support / cardiac arrest scenarios
OBJECTIVES
The learning objectives for the student doing the three-day course include:
- Define the indications and views needed for each protocol.
- Recognise and obtain good quality images for each protocol on (relatively) healthy volunteers with a variety of body habitus.
- Understand the implementation of each protocol using case-based quizzes.
- Recognise pathology within the context of a clinical scenario.
- Discuss clinical decision making in the light of the information obtained.
- Synthesise three tools to model multi-system scanning, with the aim of improving patient care.
ACCREDITATION
Accreditation pending in March