Take the appendix challenge

Do you want to improve your imaging skills safely?  Then take challenges like this case from Dr. Gordon.  When you have someone waiting to get a CT for appendicitis, look for the appendix yourself with POCUS.  If you see it and still can’t convince your surgeon to go to the OR, then getting an elective U/S before the CT might save some radiation. [Ed.]

Lloyd’s case:

This was a handover. A CT was ordered to R/O Appendicitis. I took this as a challenge.

The patient was of average build. I found an area of fluid between the SB loops. I reasoned that the appendix was somewhere close at hand. A minimum of fiddling and the appendix appeared: not compressible, swollen, and oedematous.

I ordered an elective U/S as our surgeons look upon POCUS as the Devil’s tool.