You may be familiar with thoracic ultrasonography, but are you aware of its variety of uses?
The annual Lung and Pleural Diaphragmatic Ultrasonography for the Pulmonologist and Critical Care Specialist postgraduate course will cover both common as well as less common uses of thoracic ultrasonography, said Paul H. Mayo, MD, FCCP, a professor at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. The full-day ticketed course on Saturday starts at 7:30 am in the convention center, room 213A.
Some less common uses of ultrasonography include evaluation of diaphragm function, utility for weaning from mechanical ventilator support, and guidance of transthoracic aspiration and biopsy procedures. Ultrasonography for diaphragm function is not widely known by pulmonary specialists, but it has useful application in the clinical practice, Dr. Mayo added.
“Pulmonary specialists deal with the lung and pleura—that’s their bread and butter,” Dr. Mayo said. “They have a lot of interest in the utility of ultrasonography for pulmonary practice. It has excellent application for critical care practice, but also applies to pulmonary practice as well. We figured that we would design a course for both pulmonary and critical care specialists, hence the decision to put pulmonary first in the title of the course.”
The first half of the morning will be a series of didactic lectures with real-time demonstration scanning on thoracic ultrasonography, diaphragm ultrasonography, and ultrasonography for guidance of thoracic procedures, while the rest of the course will focus on intensive small group training in image acquisition and interpretation.
“We like to have a one-to-three learning ratio for hands-on training, so attendees receive a lot of personal attention,” Dr. Mayo said. “The image interpretation sessions will be involving audience participation in interpreting a wide range of abnormal images. It’s a very dynamic session, and the participants are all very engaged. The hands-on training faculty are all expert level, having served at multiple of the national level CHEST ultrasonography courses.”