"What's different about your Hospitalist POCUS course?"
Fair question. Here's the honest answer:
Most POCUS courses teach in perfect conditions:
✓ Latest equipment
✓ Ideal patients
✓ Academic setting
✓ Radiology backup available
Our POCUS Focused course teaches for reality:
→ Equipment that's "good enough"
→ Difficult patients (obese, edematous, uncooperative)
→ Community hospital constraints
→ You ARE the backup
See for yourself here:
pocusfocused.com/specialties
Real example: This past weekend, I needed cardiac POCUS but couldn't get good windows. Subcostal obscured by bowel gas, displaced diaphragm moved cardiac windows, air-filled bowel blocked IVC views. All I could get was apical 2-chamber... but I COULD answer key questions: LV functioning? Yes. Hyperdynamic? Yes. Pericardial effusion? No.
It wasn't perfect 5-view cardiac POCUS, but it was exactly what I needed for bedside decision-making during resuscitation.
We're building scenarios like:
- 3 AM with one functioning ultrasound probe
- Patient who can't lie flat - Machine older than your medical school graduation
- No radiology tech until Monday
Why? Because that's where POCUS makes the biggest difference.
When conditions are perfect, you have other options. When they're not, you need skills that actually work.
As an Internal Medicine/Critical Care physician who completed Emergency Ultrasound fellowship, I realized EM and ICU POCUS approaches are different than what hospitalists need. That's why we created a hospitalist-specific course focused on inpatient medical practice - bread and butter scenarios that work even with less-than-ideal windows.
Real-world preparedness. Not classroom perfection.
Let’s have that conversation. What "real world" challenges do you face that courses don't usually address?
#POCUS #MedEd #RealWorld #CourseDesign #HospitalMedicine
@RJonesSonoEM @mount_md
@NephroP
@KalagaraHari @siddharth_dugar
Cristin Mount, MD, MACP, FCCM