A few weeks ago we had a wonderful time in Bend, Oregon during Bendfest 2019.  We got some mountain biking in, some hiking in, some river floating in and ate some great food!  We wanted to share the choicest pearls from our phenomenal lecturers on some of the topics they covered.  Check out the summary of day 1! Peter Weimersheimer (Cardiac): Find the beating thing first. Use lots of gel, and lot of pressure to get your view. Get your ultrasound beam parallel with the heart. Start your exam with your patient in the left lateral decubitus position. Do one maneuver at a time (rotate, fan, rock, etc). Start with the probe at the clavicle/sternal interface, slide down until you see the heart. You don’t always need all the 4 views of the heart. If ventricle is round, subtle hand rotations will fix. #1 point – Just use bedside echo. Ben Smith (Aorta, renal) If you think you see mild hydro, use color flow to differentiate between mild hydro and prominent renal vessels Scan from the back; the ribs are farther away from each other back there so may get better windows. We aren’t good at finding the actual ureteral stone, but were pretty good at hydro For getting past bowel gas when looking at the aorta – start up high where there is less gas (epigastric). Then when you come up on gas, use other hand to apply steady pressure (often 30-60 seconds). Use curvilinear probe, hurts less than the phased array. Transhepatic view of aorta – not bad for aneurysm, but not great for dissection We are good at looking at the aorta as long as we can actually see the aorta. Research that show great accuracy of bedside sonographic aorta exam only included studies where the aorta... Read More