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.
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”
