West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds is using the latest generation point-of-care ultrasound system to help intensive care trainees develop their skills in cardiac and lung ultrasound, as consultant anaesthetist Dr Kaushik Bhowmick explained: “My main focus is point-of-care echocardiography, while one of my colleagues is particularly interested in lung ultrasound.
We have a strong focus on training – we are the first district general hospital in the eastern region to offer a FICE training course – and wanted a good teaching device for our intensive care trainees. FUJIFILM SonoSite’s X-Porte® ultrasound system is ideal for these purposes. I also use it in theatre if an echocardiogram is required, complementing the SonoSite Edge® that we routinely use for vascular access and nerve blocks.”
“In real-time situations, there may be occasions when a trainee cannot get the view they want and are not sure why. This is where the X-Porte can really help, as the trainee can review the steps in acquiring the image from the teaching module embedded within the machine and find out where they went wrong. Interpretation of the data is even more important, and so we also use the system for seminars, showing the trainees different slices from various patients, and talking through a range of cases. I am also actively promoting FICE accreditation to other consultants, as I think it is an important technique to learn. Ultimately, the more people who can use point-of-care ultrasound, the better it will be for our patients.”
