New York City (NY, USA), June 11-14th, 2006 - The Second World Congress on Ultrasound in Emergency and Critical Care Medicine

Inhaltsübersicht

The target of this World Congress on Ultrasonography was "point-of-care" ultrasound in emergency and critical care medicine. A rich programme with a large number of international experts both in the faculty and in the audience was offered during the four days, attended by a total number of some 400 medical doctors from all five continents. As clinicians, they were specialized in the topics of emergency medicine and critical care in a variety of intra-hospital settings (emergency departments, perioperative areas, intensive care units, ambulances) and out-of-hospital scenarios (road accidents, disaster and mass casualties, etc.). Over the last two years these colleagues have been gathering in an international network rapidly developing into a well structured world society (WINFOCUS = World Interactive Network Focused On Critical Care UltraSound, www.winfocus.org).

In pre-congress courses, clinical ultrasonography in its "point-of-care" function was discussed in smaller groups. Lectures in the plenary sessions were given on topics such as assessing the lung and heart in dyspnoea and in shock , thromboembolism, vascular emergencies, acute abdomen, torso and limb trauma, etc. In well attended parallel sessions (including posters), all the various fields of interest in abdominal, thoracic, cardiac, bones, joints, and soft tissue ultrasonography in emergencies and in intensive care were considered as central themes and demonstrated in detail, including sessions concerning basics of technology, hands-on training in "knobology" and various US-guided needle techniques such as vascular access, nerve blockage, emergency draining procedures, and others. An impressive number of training models including porcine heads and limbs (to assess procedural guidance, ocular trauma and fractures) was provided. The mostly younger medical colleagues made an uncomplicated approach to and an unbiased use of ultrasonography, in more or less a self-evident manner, not hindered by any fears that it might be too difficult to learn or to practice - for the ultrasonography-oldies in the congress a refreshing experience since we felt they were right. Even a non expert use of ultrasonography is in some focused instances better than none, and the best way to learn the fine arts of ultrasonography simply is to do it - backked up as far as possible with the best of theoretical and practical guidance and training available, of course, and with an effective gradual competence-based approach.

In this sense, the congress made an excellent and highly successful effort to bring clinical ultrasonography to the position it deserves in providing an optimal use and service for all our patients, particularly those in emergency and intensive care circumstances. In this sense, the idea and the objectives of the congress as worded before were achieved: bringing qualified ultrasound to all acute and critically ill patients, in all out-of-hospital and in-hospital clinical settings, by developing and fostering, on a global and multi-disciplinary basis, continuing education, technology development, clinical research and international teamwork. Ultrasonography as a clinical decision making and problemsolving tool has a lot of attractive features - immediate availability, real-time insights into the body with high resolution at low cost, safe interventional guidance, etc., as we all know. In short: ultrasonography is so convincingly good in emergencies and other critical settings as well as in clinical routine use, that it is already now an indispensable clinical tool. The use of ultrasonography should not be restricted to any of the medical subspecialities, it should be available to all medical doctors who need to use it responsibly for their patients.

Next year, on the occasion of the third World Congress (Paris, May 9-11th, 2007), the overviews and the state-of-the-art presentations will leave room to "point-of-care ultrasound" enhanced protocols, for all clinical emergencies, based on international consensus and, as far as possible, on clinical evidence (see www.winfocus/Paris2007.html).

Lucas Greiner, MD

Professor of Internal Medicine/Gastroenterology Honorary Secretary EFSUMB

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Luca Neri, MD

Emergency Surgeon and Intensivist, WINFOCUS coordinator

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