ultrasound

The Doppler effect refers to a shift in frequency perceived by an object in motion relative to the source of a wave. When applying this to ultrasonography, the transducer is a stationary source of ultrasound waves of a known frequency…

Today's didactic lecture on epiaortic ultrasonography was given by one of my wonderful cardiothoracic anesthesiology attendings - Dr. Jeff Swanson. As part of traditional cardiac surgeries, the aorta can be extensively manipulated -…

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS, “bedside ultrasound”) is useful for so many things in the intensive care and perioperative settings. I routinely utilize POCUS to assess my patients’ cardiac contractility, intravascular volume status,…

Intracardiac echocardiography (ICE) allows cardiologists to visualize cardiac structures (aorta, valves, pulmonary veins, chambers, etc) from an ultrasound catheter usually threaded into the right atrium (RA) or right ventricle (RV) from…

In this ultrasound still image, I have a phase array probe positioned on the left side of the body around the 8th rib. A left-sided pleural effusion is noted. It's important to appreciate this view to look for free fluid in the subphrenic…

Here's a quick primer of cardiac transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) including actual images I've taken as a critical care fellow with corresponding labeled diagrams. I challenge you all to actually review your patients' echo images…

Ultrasound is not only a great bedside diagnostic modality, but it's routinely used to guide procedures like line placement, peripheral nerve blocks, and thora/paracentesis. It relies on pulses of high frequency sound waves reflecting off…

I've finished over three months of my critical care fellowship, and my has the time flown by! I've completed items 1 - 7 on my list of rotations and will be starting a two week elective in TEE/imaging tomorrow. It'll be a nice preview of…

During normal respirations, the parietal pleura slides over the visceral pleura. This movement can be visualized with ultrasound. The lack of sliding can be a concerning sign for pneumothorax, although data suggests that such a finding may…

The subcostal view on transthoracic echocardiography can be used to examine the inferior vena cava (IVC), a large valveless vein which returns blood from the lower body to the right atrium (RA).