POCUS History

An emergency physician who I know that works somewhere on the planet in an underserviced area, as most places seem to be, was cleaning up his office this summer. He came across this relic of POCUS history that dates back to the late 1990s. It was a dictation that he had saved as evidence of the need for POCUS in his ED. The text below shows an excerpt from the dictation indicating a request for a CT scan which was declined. The name of the MD from whom the CT was requested has been blotted out to protect the…uh…innocent.

As you might have guessed, this patient did not have a good outcome. It’s now almost 2 decades since that case occurred. Although there is still the need for constant advocacy for POCUS, the original battle to put ultrasound probes in the hands of clinicians at 2 AM was the toughest one. With POCUS now such an integral part of clinical medicine, some younger physicians are sometimes surprised by stories of “the old days”. It would now be unthinkable that such a patient would perish. But the reality is that that is exactly what happened in the pre-POCUS era. So, thanks to all of you who have fought the battle in the past to bring POCUS into your departments. Whether you realize it or not, all of those emails and long hours of committee work have actually saved lives!