UConn School of Medicine experts continue to be on the forefront of teaching point-of-care ultrasonography (PoCUS) and have now expanded their training to New England’s health care professionals.

On April 10-11 UConn’s medical school organized the first annual New England Regional PoCUS Symposium in Bristol, Conn. Physicians, fellows, residents, and advanced practice providers had the opportunity to gain hands-on PoCUS training and education. The symposium also focused on Advanced Critical Care Echocardiography (CCE), another effective tool for the management of critically ill patients.

“Our first annual PoCUS symposium was a huge success,” says Symposium Course Director Dr. Jennifer Kanaan, associate professor of Medicine, Pulmonary, Critical Care, and Sleep Medicine at UConn School of Medicine. She has been teaching a Connecticut statewide course on PoCUS for pulmonary critical care fellows since 2015 as well as a curriculum with colleagues for UConn School of Medicine’s Emergency Medicine residency and UConn John Dempsey hospitalists too.

PoCUS is ultrasonography performed rapidly at the patient’s bedside and interpreted in real-time by the clinician to aid with decision-making and procedural guidance.  It is most widely used in emergency medicine and pulmonary critical care.

“The response from the Symposium was very positive so we will be running it again next year,” says Kanaan of UConn. “It is important to have this regional meeting as it provides an opportunity for experts from around the region to educate fellows on critical care PoCUS as well as share ideas on the future of point of care ultrasound.”

Keynote speaker for the event was internationally recognized Paul Mayo, MD, FCCP, professor of Medicine at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra. He discussed cutting-edge PoCUS education and the future of ultrasound, led a panel discussion with regional experts, and for the audience even taught a UConn fellow how to perform a Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) imaging procedure with a hands-on simulation.

Panel discussions also explored issues such as credentialing, billing, and quality assurance and ultrasound case studies were presented by various fellows.

Other Connecticut health care institution faculty assisting UConn with the successful Symposium included Aydin Pinar, M.D., Assistant Course Director from Yale; Ian Weir, D.O., Assistant Course Director from Yale School of Medicine and Nuvance Health; Ameer Rasheed, M.D., CME Coordinator, Assistant Professor of Medicine at UConn Health; Zubin Bham, M.D., Associate Program Director, Internal Medicine Residency at Bridgeport Hospital and Yale New Haven Health; and Adriana Olariu, M.D., Clinical Instructor at Yale School of Medicine.