POCUS - Point of Care Ultrasound
What is POCUS?
POCUS is seeing with sound, where the clinician managing the patient is actively acquiring, interpreting and clinically integrating focused ultrasound in real time to help make management decisions at the patient’s bedside. Technology has reached the point where the hand held ultrasound device will replace the stethoscope in this generation of medicine.
POCUS training at The Pillar Centre
The Pillar Centre for Transformative Healthcare is located here in the Mater Misericordiae University Hospital in Dublin. It launched in 2018 and will ultimately house facilities for clinical research, genomics, bio-banking, inter-disciplinary team training, education and innovation programme facilities.
The Mater Hospital has an exceptional reputation for clinicians teaching bedside ultrasound, making POCUS training at The Pillar Centre a leading choice for clinicians looking to learn POCUS.
Helpful FAQs
Why learn POCUS?
POCUS allows you to make life-saving interventions based on information obtained at the bedside such as does my patient have cardiac tamponade, massive pulmonary embolus, pneumothorax or pulmonary oedema.It enables you to differentiate more accurately between chest pathologies with lung ultrasound coupled with clinical assessment.It enhances time spent at bedside, increasing the level of satisfaction for both you and your patient.
Who should learn POCUS?
- Emergency Medicine
- Critical Care Medicine
- Acute Medicine
- General Internal Medicine
- Respiratory Medicine
- Cardiology
- General Surgery
- General Practice
- Prehospital care
What POCUS training options are available at The Pillar Centre?
All options can be flexible according to your availability, location and training needs and as such we can compile a bespoke educational package to suit you.
Our POCUS training options at The Pillar Centre offer:
- 1 or 2 day introductory courses with pre-course online learning modules, allowing for 75% of the day to involve ‘probe in hand’ learning on the day with both normal and abnormal findings.
- 6 month modules beginning with a course, then logging a predetermined number of scans with supervised scanning, regular review of scans with formative and summative assessment and certification after course completion.
- Ultrasound internships where learners will spend 2 to 6 weeks in hospital immersed in scanning, including supervised scan review and procedures.
Who teaches POCUS at The Pillar Centre?
Core faculty members will teach POCUS, including:
- Dr Cian Mc Dermott – Consultant in Emergency Medicine
- Dr. Tomas Breslin – Consultant in Emergency Medicine
What are the key learnings for participants?
You will learn:
- How to obtain the focused images you require to answer your clinical question
- Basic physics of ultrasound including the ‘buttonology’ of machines and how to interpret your images
- How to integrate your findings with the clinical picture and use procedures where appropriate
- The initial focus will be on the use of heart and lung ultrasound to aid diagnosis and management of medically unwell patients
- We will facilitate in situ scanning of patients in the Emergency Department, on the hospital wards and in the Intensive Care Unit.
Upcoming POCUS Courses
Testimonials
“My ultrasound internship in the Mater Hospital Emergency Department surpassed my expectations as to how much my skills could be improved in the six weeks that I spent there”.
“Over the six months I was attached to the Mater Emergency Department I built up an excellent portfolio and confidence in my point of care ultrasound skills which I will share in my own sphere of work”.
