Interest in emergency ultrasound continues to skyrocket. Clinicians who
practice in the emergency department, the critical care setting, and other
acute care settings have become increasingly familiar with how emergency
ultrasound can improve and expedite patient care at the bedside. Moreover,
its use in enhancing patient safety and reducing errors has been recognized.
The application of emergency ultrasound has been incorporated into every
emergency medicine residency program. The number of fellowship training
programs has increased exponentially. Clinician investigators from nearly
all medical specialties and from across the globe have published papers on
bedside applications of emergency ultrasound.
This textbook was written by and for health care workers who are engaged in
the practice of clinical medicine. We selected topics that represent those
problems most commonly encountered in the emergency or acute care setting,
thereby generating the greatest interest for the broadest readership. Our
aim was to address the needs of clinicians with varied backgrounds and
training. Emergency physicians certainly will find this book applicable to
their daily practice. Physicians who practice in family medicine, internal
medicine, critical care, and general surgery will also find this book to be
of value for specific clinical scenarios.
We
would like to thank the readers of the first edition of this textbook who
offered us excellent feedback that helped us add several new features to
this edition. For each chapter, as in the first edition, the clinical
considerations and indications of the specific emergency ultrasound
examination are discussed. Prior to presenting the technique for the focused
emergency ultrasound examination, a new section on “Getting Started”
is included to aid novice sonologists who may require additional information
on the specific examination. Each chapter continues to emphasize the key
aspects of the
focused emergency ultrasound examination; this
textbook does not attempt to cover every element of the normal comprehensive
ultrasound examination. New chapters on prehospital care, ocular
applications, and ultrasound-guided procedures are included. Another new
feature in this edition is the inclusion of color figures throughout the
book. Finally, we feel that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a
video clip may be worth a hundred thousand. A DVD that demonstrates several
common emergency ultrasound examinations is included with each textbook.
Experts from six countries and a variety of medical
specialties have contributed to this textbook. We would like to express our
deep appreciation to the contributors for their commitment and hard work in
helping to produce this textbook. We also would like to thank them for
helping us collect the more than 900 figures that are included in this
textbook. We would like to thank Lori Green and Gulfcoast Ultrasound for
their support of this project and for providing us with numerous ultrasound
images from their library. We are indebted to numerous individuals who
assisted us with this project; in particular, we would like to thank Anne M.
Sydor, Sarah Granlund, Martin Wonsiewicz, and Joe Rusko for their invaluable
efforts.
O. John Ma, MD
James R. Mateer, MD
Michael
Blaivas, MD