Author Archive: Greg Hall
Greg is a graduate of Western University and directory of emergency department ultrasound in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. He is a clinical associate professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.
He is a co-author of the Point-of-care Ultrasound for Emergency Physician textbook and director of the EDE3 course.
Not just the tough LP: POCUS is good for them all
We’ve talked about this before, but it’s time for a reminder. POCUS improves the speed and success of performing ALL lumbar punctures, not just the difficult ones. As per one of the laws of emergency medicine, you will not perform a procedure for months and then get hit with multiple cases on your next shift. […]
Walking through a fluid challenge case
Today we are going to give you a walk through of a case from a front line physician and his thought process in figuring out how much fluid to give a patient using POCUS. There are many ways to estimate fluid responsiveness/tolerance, some still hotly debated, but I think it’s worthwhile to show what some […]
Abscesses, hematomas, and cellulitis, oh my!
I used to think that hematomas and abscesses were pretty straightforward to diagnose clinically. But I have had several cases that proved my initial suspicion to be wrong. Certainly the literature suggests we could do better differentiating cellulitis, DVT, and abscesses. I saw a patient who presented after knee surgery with a hot, swollen and […]
Why you should care about billing for your scans
An uncomfortable subject for physicians but billing for our services is not just about compensation it is also recognition of the training, expertise, and time involved in providing a service. But most importantly, compensation for POCUS is necessary for its long term viability. The initial battle was all about fighting for our right to perform bedside […]
CEUS Educator’s Conference
The Canadian Emergency Ultrasound Society is holding and educator’s conference Thursday September 15 and Friday Sept 16 in Toronto. Registration is now full! One of the first orders of business is that CEUS will be changing it’s name to CPoCUS to reflect the growing number of non-emergency medicine specialties now involved in the organization. […]
Stop missing biliary colic
Editor’s note: We’ve talked about the gallbladder before. And we will be talking about it again because the message needs to get out there. I will go out on a limb and state that it is still common for patients to present with epigastric pain that was previously diagnosed by the primary care physician or one […]
Misuse and over-diagnosis in POCUS
As Steve Socransky recently observed, talking about errors in POCUS is a sign of the growing maturity in the field. In its infancy, we wanted to promote the success stories, the wins, the need to do it right with rigorous training and standards. There were numerous logistical and political obstacles to overcome so this positive […]
EDE Bootcamp Success
Over the past weekend we held a bootcamp that provided participants with the EDE course followed by supervised scans and exams to obtain CEUS IP certification in core skills. I have been asked numerous times what our bootcamps are all about for POCUS training. Over the past few years we have perfected a system that […]
Appendicitis: It isn’t all about the size
During a recent EDE 3 course, I was asked about the cutoff size for appendicitis in children. I informed the learner that 6mm was the number I was taught to use for all ages. And this is certainly one of the most accurate measurements to use. But this really doesn’t make sense in very young patients […]
Ultrasound horror stories
I am looking for tales of patient care gone wrong with POCUS. Please send me your cases, (or cases you “heard happened to someone else”) where the use of ultrasound at the bedside led to less than ideal outcomes. POCUS is just like any other tool in medicine: it has its limitations, it can generate […]
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