Be aware and take care: Practicalities and pitfalls of POCUS

This lecture provides a practical introduction to Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) in the emergency setting It explores core ultrasound principles, image optimisation, and clinical application through thoracic and abdominal POCUS examples, highlighting its utility, common pitfalls, and the importance of integrating findings with the clinical presentation and further imaging when necessary.

• Describe the technique for abdominal and thoracic POCUS
• -Understand how basic ultrasound physics applies to POCUS
• -Appraise POCUS in light of the history and other clinicopathological findings
• -Understand the limitations of POCUS