Chair's Letter

Meghan Herbst, MD, FACEP
ACEP EUS Chair
Professor of Emergency Medicine
UConn School of Medicine

With this being my last Chair Letter, I want to thank Mike Gottlieb, Sam Lam, Steve Alerhand, Laura Oh, Heidi Knowles, Ami Kurzweil, Gregg Helland, and Julie Rispoli for their support and collaboration over the past year. We (presumably everyone reading) are so fortunate to have chosen ultrasound as their area of interest—not just because it is a life-saving game-changing technology in medicine, but also because of the people we have the privilege to meet and work alongside. Our ultrasound community is truly outstanding.

Below is a summary of this month’s articles:

Pediatrics: Dr. Riera reminds us of the benefits of incorporating the FAST into pediatric care, underscoring the importance of appropriate training, and calling for more current multicenter robust research. In a separate article, Dr. Chaudoin presents a pediatric case report where ultrasound expedited the diagnosis and management of intussusception. The report includes a succinct description of the technique used and a simply designed PEM Pocket Card (similar to the Critical Care cards) summarizing the approach and findings.

Critical Care: Drs. Stenberg and Truong discuss the value of TEE in guiding CPR. At the end there are two beautiful TEE images (midesophageal long axis and four-chamber views) that match the simple design of the earlier published Critical Care Ultrasound Subcommittee cards. They also reference the TEE Roadmap recently created and posted on their subcommittee site.

Musculoskeletal & Nerve Blocks: Drs. Vlasica and Kushner provide a guide to ultrasound-guided nerve block billing, including a list of CPT codes and RVUs generated. In a separate article, Drs. Vlasica and Collins describe the steps and value of an ultrasound-guided suprapatellar recess injection among patients with knee pain.

Global Health: Drs. Lanter and colleagues describe the sustainable ultrasound program at the University Teaching Hospital of Kigali in Rwanda created through collaboration with Stanford Emergency Medicine. Following a bootcamp and monthly QA, this team has successfully navigated varying levels of PoCUS adoption, technical support, and WIFI bandwidth issues. In a separate article, Dr. Ibrahim and Wanjiku detail the first obstetric PoCUS course taught by an Egyptian pocus training program (Sonoschool). Finally, Drs. Martin and Dreyfuss describe a year-long PoCUS fellowship created in 2018 for emergency physicians in Peru, capitalizing on tele-ultrasound features of handheld devices.  

Simulation: Dr. Trent She showcases an entry (Double Balloon Pericardiocentesis Model) from a novel easy-to-follow Phantom Recipe Cookbook resource that will be posted on the ACEP Resident and Simulation ultrasound subcommittee sites.

Resident Education: Residents and junior faculty preparing to give a talk can refer to the nearly 20 tips and tricks for ultrasound teaching (both at the podium and at the bedside) listed by Dr. Trent She.                      

Thanks to all of our contributors. Readers, please continue to make ultrasound part of your initial patient assessment. Even though many of you spend hundreds of hours outside the department on education, administration, and research, our number one job is taking the best possible care of our patients. And I know you all realize that ultrasound is part of that.

Meghan