POCUS Focus: Ultrasound sim covers basics and more

It’s not hocus pocus.

Rather, Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) is a practical—and crucial—trick of the trade in emergency medicine, and UAB Clinical Simulation’s POCUS sim offers learners both didactic and hands-on experience in the subject.

“Ultrasounds can be used all around the hospital when taking care of patients,” said Timothy Kennell, M.D., facilitator and fellow of pulmonary and critical care medicine. “In this course, we go over cardiac ultrasound, lung ultrasound, a little bit of abdominal, which mostly consists of renal and bladder, and typically DVT (deep vein thrombosis) ultrasound scanning for the legs, all of which is highly relevant for most of the patients our residents care for in the hospital.”

According to Kennell, most of the learners are Graduate Medical Education residents with some level of ultrasound experience, “but a lot of this is designed so that they don’t necessarily require any previous exposure and can actually learn from the ground up.”

Although the didactic portion of the experience offers vital background and information, the hands-on segment—a simulation featuring standardized patients (people trained to portray patients, demonstrating their medical history, physical exam findings and emotional responses to provide learners with realistic experiences)—is critical, Kennell said.

“The didactics for ultrasound can only carry you so far, due to the fact that it’s mostly a hands-on skillset with interpretation coming afterward, so having a hands-on component with standardized patients in the simulation lab has been crucial,” he said.

And the learners agree. In fielding their feedback, Kennell said residents are appreciative of the simulation experience, often expressing a desire to continue practicing.

“They gain a bit of the base understanding of ultrasound and its utility,” he said. “Primarily, we hope to give them a solid foundation and spur an interest and willingness for them to keep on practicing.”

Learn how UAB Clinical Simulation can benefit your staff, team or department by emailing simulation@uabmc.edu. 

UAB Medicine’s Clinical Simulation program offers opportunities for individuals and teams across UAB Medicine and beyond to practice before they deliver care. We encourage all who provide and support patient care to “SimFirst.” Together, we can put our patients’ safety first.