Integrating U/S into your PE

Apr 13

Written By Adam Broughton

The fact that bedside or point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is not a routine part of the physical exam (PE) makes no sense to me. My guess is that we were all taught the PE using just our hands, stethoscope, otoscope, and ophthalmoscope. That stethoscope around your neck hasn’t had an update in a century (unless you have a digital ‘scope) and those analog, curly-wired oto/ophthalmoscopes are as outdated as a telephone with a cord!!!

But I digress, I can teach you how to use new, cheap, cordless digital stethoscopes, otoscopes, and opthalmoscopes another time.

Here, we will take the skills that you already know and augment them with the use of bedside ultrasound machine, so get ready to hang an ultrasound probe around your neck with you stethoscope because you can use it to gain useful, pertinent, physical exam findings with better accuracy than your ears and fingers can.