Point-of-Care Ultrasound Clerkship

Catalog description

VISITING: Open to visitors. TYPE OF CLERKSHIP: Elective. DESCRIPTION: Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) has become increasingly utilized in multiple medical specialties, with emergency medicine at the forefront. This rotation is designed to introduce point-of-care ultrasound to the clinical medical student and provide more in-depth and hands-on familiarity with bedside US for a variety of modalities. These skills will better equip students to use these techniques at the bedside of any patient in the emergency room or on the floors with greater facility and confidence. It will enhance patient diagnosis and management, procedural guidance, and patient satisfaction. It may even save a life! Primary emphasis will be on developing competent technical skills to enhance image acquisition and interpretation. The applications as defined by the American College of Emergency Physicians will be the main focus. A goal for a minimum number of ultrasound scans will be 150 scans from a variety of applications including the aorta, bowel, limited echo and IVC, DVT, hepatobiliary, MSK, ocular, pelvic, procedural guidance, US-guided PIV, skin and soft tissue, testicular, thoracic, trauma (the eFAST), and renal. Other advanced ultrasound applications will potentially be introduced (airway, nerve blocks, etc). Students will obtain US images in the Stanford Emergency Department and will have imaging formally reviewed by a US fellowship trained emergency medicine faculty member. Images will be obtained during scan shifts during which students will scan appropriate patients and review images with the faculty member onsite and independently. Students will attend US didactics offered by an US EM faculty member every Thursday, followed by quality assessment (QA) review of Ultrasound scans performed in the ED. his clerkship requires prior approval by Clerkship Director. Contact clerkship director…