Point of Care Ultrasound is becoming more commonly used throughout the medical field and even beyond the four walls of the hospital and professional buildings where doctors, nurses, and technicians do a majority of their work. One of the many promising ways POCUS is being used, by our Maverick Medical Education trainees and medical professionals across the country, is the use in identifying and working through cardiac issues with our patients.
How Can POCUS Help
The number of ways POCUS can identify cardiac issues clearly is increasing as more medical professionals become trained on how to use and interpret results. For starters, a study published with the National Library of Medicine has shown that using POCUS to observe the lungs helps to diagnose and treat acute heart failure. Other studies have shown that in the event of cardiac arrest, POCUS can help steer doctors to making a decision in favor of pericardial tamponade, with an improved discharge rate by those who get the data from a POCUS exam before and after resuscitation. One caution is needing to stop resuscitation efforts to use POCUS. This could lead to poor outcomes for some patients. Yet another study found that using POCUS with patients with shock is proven to be beneficial, increasing “the rate of correct diagnosis of shock aetiology from 50% to 80%.”
How POCUS is Different
There are many advantages to using POCUS in any setting, cardiac issues included. For starters, trained medical professionals can get an immediate view of the heart and assess what may be going on. Additionally, because the equipment is accessible at any time, the diagnosis and/or treatment team can continually monitor what is taking place within the patient’s body. Not only does this provide faster information that can lead to a clear and quick diagnosis, but it eliminates the need to transfer the patient, potentially exposing them to other patients or diseases during that transport time.
Our POCUS Course
One of the great differences about Maverick Medical Education is the unique way we structure our courses. For starters, we have a flipped classroom model where most of our content is available to those who enroll in a course right away through online modules. These modules are accessible from any internet connected device allowing you to learn and review at your leisure, depending on your work and life schedule. With content learning out of the way, you are freed up during our in-person lab time to get the hands-on training with repetition and continuous practical instruction from our Mavericks. With this hands-on training and repetition, you will get the experience you need to be proficient, carrying on what you’ve learned to your practice and your community right away.
To begin your POCUS training, see our course calendar for the next available course. If you have questions, please contact us. Our Maverick Medical Education team is ready to help you use POCUS for your cardiac patients, or any other patient you may encounter, as soon as you finish your course.
