|
It's 10pm and the resident comes to me having seen a 61 year old lady who presents with a sudden onset of dizziness on standing. She is hypertensive, and not in any distress but describes a feeling of significant unsteadiness while standing from a sitting position at home. She describes a tremor and tingling down her left hand with no complaints of headache or vomiting despite feeling nauseous. The resident reports a 15mm Hg drop in blood pressure on standing. Other vital signs remain normal and she has a normal ECG with a normal neurological exam. She says she had a similar episode a month back but thought nothing of it. It was transient at that time and remained transient today but tonight her symptoms persisted a bit longer, making her seek help. Her FBC/U&E returns within the normal range and after being treated with 500ml of normal saline with 12.5mg of prochlorperazine she appeared well. Prior to discharge I go to see her and for a sense of completeness decide to use POCUS [point of Care Ultrasound] on her carotids. After visualising normal vasculature on the right side, it became obvious that there was a significant stenosis in the left carotid artery just distal to its origin after the bifurcation. Having found this on my unaccredited scan, it then begs the question whether it is just a coincidental finding or the cause of her symptoms. I organised a CT angiogram which confirmed the stenosis without any other pathology. The options were to then discharge her with an outpatient formal US request and a outpatient vascular appointment after starting her on Aspirin, Statin and an antihypertensive, or admitting her for further investigation. After discussion with the vascular team it was decided to admit her for a formal Duplex study of her carotids as an inpatient and after quantifying the degree of stenosis a multidisciplinary team discussion can occur in the cold light of day. She went on to have the Duplex US study the next day and was discharged remaining asymptomatic and is awaiting an outpatient clinic review by the vascular team. The video can be viewed here. Another rewarding use of POCUS in emergency medicine. AuthorDr Ash Mukherjee
0 Comments
 A bit about Brian, professionally speaking...
Brian completed all of his medical and specialty training in Emergency Medicine in the United States. He first came out to Australia in 2001 and for good reason fell in love with the place. Brian now very much calls Hobart home and works full time at the Royal Hobart Hospital and we are pleased to have him on our shores. Brian wears many “hats” including Deputy Director of Emergency Medicine and clinical lead for ultrasound at the Royal Hobart Hospital. Getting involved with EMUGs... After meeting Dr Brian O’Connell several years ago on a bridge in Fiji drinking rum and coke (not a joke) Brian O'Connell (EMUGs founding father) told Brian about a new and exciting “EMUG’s” group that had recently been established. They obviously shared a common enthusiasm… in POCUS and not just rum and coke. What drives the POCUS passion... As a medical student in 1994, Brian first saw POCUS used by the eminent Dr Joe Ornato during a resuscitation. It seemed he had a skill that no other clinicians had and the patient would have likely died without it. (To be fair, he was triple board certified in EM, medicine and cardiology). Patient care is the ultimate answer… but... let’s face it... POCUS is fun! Favourite travel destination... Just about anywhere Latin America. Great people, great culture and an opportunity to keep maintain Spanish language skills. With kids in the mix, Brian's travels, however, seem to be a lot more local now. Fortunately, Tasmania is a fantastic place to explore and enjoy the outdoors. Brian's vision for EMUGs... Brian is new to EMUGs and currently establishing the EMUGs community in Tasmania and is happy to see where this goes. Brian is mostly interested in networking, learning from colleagues and gaining further enthusiasm. If you will be in Hobart on November 19th (perhaps for the ACEM Annual Scientific Meeting) join us at Grinners Dive Bar for the maiden EMUGs Tasmania meet & greet. Progress Brian has seen with regard to POCUS and related goals for the future... In Tasmania, it seems most of the progress in POCUS has come from junior doctors seeing the amazing benefits ultrasound brings to patient care and becoming advocates. It is interesting how it is the younger generation pushing the older ones towards embracing this modality. Brian is seeking to formalise ultrasound education in the state. Hopefully EMUGs can be instrumental in helping to attain this goal. A message for those new to POCUS or EMUGs... Learning POCUS is like learning a musical instrument. Nobody is good from the start. It takes many years of repetition to become an expert. So keep up the practice and bring some sweet music to our patients ears. Small Miracles: Pocket-Size Ultrasound Boosts Infant And Maternal Health In Rural Papua New Guinea14/6/2019  American nurse Marie Elizabeth Bell recently spent nine months in Papua New Guinea, where she worked at the Kunai Health Centre in the southwestern Pacific country’s remote Gulf Province. One patient left a particular impression on her: a woman named Yaniamo, who had experienced nine pregnancies — twice with twins — but had only six living children. Yaniamo was pregnant again, and when her water broke unexpectedly, she began to fear complications. She needed care from Bell’s clinic — a two-day walk from Yaniamo’s home. So she walked. READ FULL STORY  Jacob from Ultrasound Podcast joins Kylie Baker in the GE booth at SMACC to discuss how bedside ultrasound can be used in conjunction with other tools to help manage your patients. This podcast was sponsored by GE.  According to the World Health Organization, much of the world’s population has no access to ultrasound imaging. From the jungles of Panama to the mountains of Nepal, the clinicians that are a part of our Global Health Program and help bring ultrasound to the point of patient care are our greatest source of inspiration. As we celebrate 20 years of SonoSite ultrasound this year we're taking a look back at some of the most critical and complex global health cases from the past two decades.
READ ON... On behalf of the EMUGs central council we would like to update you on what has been happening across our community recently.
The past 18 months has seen a lot of change in the organisation as we moved to a more efficient & streamlined governance and administration structure by incorporating all the regions into one body and with the formation of a central council (board of directors) to support our operations team in their roles. This has been a massive undertaking and we would like to acknowledge the work done by our operations support team: Stacey and Romy; the interim board in particular Dr Allan Whitehead and all those who advised and supported the team in this transition. We have exciting times ahead over the next 12 months as we can now focus our energy on further promoting the use of ultrasound across our network of clinicians through our events and collaborative networks such as our clinical leaders and research network. We are also continuing to advocate for POCUS education and training through our close partnerships with ACEM and ASUM. Our Regional Teams are the heart and soul of EMUGs and are an important link to the EMUGs community. Many of our teams have recently undergone a refresh with new co-chairs in most states and a number of new members joining regional committees. This is a deliberate focus of the council to prevent volunteer burnout and ensure we are continuing to bring our community innovative and fresh events. Many of our board members have been co-chairs and are also currently on regional committees and along with our operations team are available to answer any questions, provide support and help out with the regional events. If you have a passion for POCUS and would like to volunteer for to be on a regional committee then approach your regional co-chair or email our ops team who will point you in the right direction. Already this year we have run a number of successful workshops, educational meetings and clinical leaders meetings across Australia and New Zealand. After 6 months planning and establishing its team, the first South Australian EMUGs event was held in April and was well received by all those who attended. We have many more events planned throughout the year including our Central Clinical Leaders Meeting in Melbourne on 5 September (coinciding with the WFUMB Conference). This all leads into our major event for the year: Our Inaugural Conference will be held in Noosa on 21-23 March. The organisers have taken all the lessons learnt from our previous events and workshops to ensure a fantastic conference program with a 50:50 split between interesting lectures and hands on workshops and the location is amazing! Finally we’d like to thank everyone who has volunteered their time, attended our events and our amazing sponsors. Without you all we would not be able to have such a thriving group of talented and passionate clinicians. We are really excited about the upcoming 12 months as we continue to innovate, adapt to our community’s needs and promote POCUS to the masses. See you in Noosa! Dr Luke Phillips and Dr Mark Rewi EMUGs Central Council Co-Chairs
AUTHORALLAN WHITEHEAD
EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN BASS COAST HEALTH CCPU (OTAGO) CCPU (ASUM) snowydoogie@ozemail.com.au |
AuthorBlogs are written by our EMUGs Team from across Australasia. Archives
August 2019
|
RSS Feed
