Ultrasonography has been demonstrated to improve the quality of patient care and enhance patient safety. Its applications transcend any one medical specialty or hospital location. Medical centers, both large and small, along with medical and nursing schools have incorporated ultrasound into their clinical pathways and educational curriculums in a multidisciplinary and transprofessional manner. Ultrasound is used by medical providers working in austere environments and on the frontlines of war zones. Clinician investigators from nearly all medical specialties and from across the globe have published research on the applications of point-of-care ultrasound.
This textbook was written by and for clinicians who are actively engaged in patient care at the bedside. We have selected topics that represent those problems most commonly encountered in the emergency or acute care setting. 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, hospital medicine, critical care, pediatrics, and general surgery will use many of these ultrasound examinations to optimize their patient care. We trust that mid-level providers who practice in related fields will also find this textbook useful.
We would like to thank the readers of previous editions of this textbook who offered us excellent feedback. New topics or chapters on cardiac, pulmonary, critical care, and musculoskeletal ultrasound applications are included. More color figures are embedded throughout the book. Finally, we feel that if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a video may be worth several hundred thousand. These videos include expert commentary, multiple camera angles, and video images of numerous normal and abnormal findings.
Experts from several countries and numerous medical specialties have contributed to this textbook. We would like to express our warmest appreciation to the chapter 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 ultrasound images from their library. We are indebted to a number of individuals who assisted us with this project; in particular, we would like to thank Anne M. Sydor, Sarah M. Granlund, and Robert Pancotti for their invaluable contributions.
O. John Ma, MD
James R. Mateer, MD
Robert F. Reardon, MD
Scott A. Joing, MD