TY - CHAP M1 - Book, Section TI - Ultrasound in Low-Resource Settings A1 - Gelin, Anst A1 - Dunlop, Stephen J. A2 - Ma, O. John A2 - Mateer, James R. A2 - Reardon, Robert F. A2 - Byars, Donald V. A2 - Knapp, Barry J. A2 - Laudenbach, Andrew P. PY - 2021 T2 - Ma and Mateer's Emergency Ultrasound, 4e AB - In low-resource settings, physicians may operate in an environment with limited information, limited resources, and under immense time pressure. With the scarcity of computed tomography (CT), plain films, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), invasive monitoring, and advanced laboratory studies, the importance of point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) exponentially rises. Lack of resources can be encountered in rural areas of high-income countries (HICs) as well as in the majority of the developing world, making POCUS a key to the practice of medicine. Advanced imaging methods such as CT or MRI are typically unavailable, or when present, inaccessible to the majority. These limitations include not only cost and maintenance of equipment, but also the training necessary for technicians and the need for interpretation of studies, which is usually done by another provider. All these factors result in an extreme scarcity of advanced imaging. For example, Haiti, a country of greater than 10 million inhabitants, currently has four CT scanners, all of which are located near the capital. These machines are often available for only a few hours of the day and are frequently not operational due to the need for repair. SN - PB - McGraw-Hill Education CY - New York, NY Y2 - 2024/03/29 UR - accessemergencymedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1175881706 ER -