CACTUS (Children’s Acute Ultrasound) 26 March 2025, Mindray, Watford

Description

Course date

• 26th March 2025,  8:30am (registration)

Introduction

This is a one-day face-to-face course focused in acute and critical care point-of-care ultrasound in children. Point of care ultrasound (POCUS) is the bedside use of ultrasound to answer a specific diagnostic questions, assist with a procedure or track clinical progression. The course is addressed at health professionals working in acute paediatrics, paediatric critical care and high dependency.

CACTUS (Children’s Acute Ultrasound) is a two-part training and accreditation program modelled on CUSIC and FICE but bespoke to paediatric intensive care, emergency medicine and acute paediatrics. 

The program consists of a one-day course and subsequent competency development through practical skill acquisition, mentoring and accreditation at the POCUS trainee’s home institution or on a specific fellowship.

Click here for the ICS CACTUS accreditation

Course objectives

Lung POCUS

• To understand basic physics and principles of ultrasound
• Probe selection and image optimisation
• Performance of systematic examination of lung and pleura
• Recognition of normal thoracic structures and adjacent organs 
• Identification of US appearances of normal aerated lung
• Recognition of pleural fluid 
• Use of ultrasound to exclude pneumothorax 

Cardiac POCUS

• Performance of systematic examination of heart & vessels
• Recognition of normal cardiac structures and adjacent organs 
• Basic assessment on volume status and myocardial contractility
• Assessment of pericardial effusion

Abdominal POCUS

• Performance of systematic examination of all abdominal areas
• Recognition of Normal Structures (liver, spleen, kidneys, bladder)
• Recognition of intra-abdominal free fluid, full bladder, bowel peristalsis

Vascular POCUS

• Identification of ultrasound appearances of normal vessels 
• Knowledge of the benefits of longitudinal and of transverse scanning 
• Understand the importance of two handed advancement, and the concept of “scanning the tip”

Location

Mindray Office
Hyde Building
Clarendon Road 38
Watford
England
WD17 1JW

5 min walk from Watford junction station.

Google Map

Cost

Course fee £200

Information for delegates

• Upon completion of the CACTUS course there would then be a one off fee to PICS (£95 for members, £190 for non-members) to proceed with accreditation. This fee covers all administration costs of the CACTUS accreditation process and producing the certificate of competency at the end of the accreditation.

• Meetings with the mentor, and costs incurred for the face-to-face final assessment, are the responsibility of the trainee.

Faculty

CACTUS Faculty & Instructors

• Dr Dusan Raffaj, PICU Consultant, Nottingham Children’s Hospital
• Dr Michael Griksaitis, PICU Consultant, Southampton Children’s Hospital
• Dr Hiren Mehta, PICU Consultant, Birmingham Children’s Hospital
• Avishay Sarfatti, PICU Consultant at Oxford University Hospital
• Juan R. V. Ortiz, PICU Consultant, Course co-director and organiser
• Ángela Aramburo, Paediatric Intensivist, Royal Brompton Hospital, Guys and St Thomas Foundation Trust
• Antonio Pérez Iranzo, Paediatric Intensivist

Course directors

• Dr Dusan Raffaj, PICU Consultant, Nottingham Children’s Hospital
• Juan R. V. Ortiz, PICU Consultant, Course co-director and organiser

Course organisers

• Juan R. V. Ortiz. PICU Consultant, Course co-director and organiser.