Forays into Ultrasound

Re: Forays into Ultrasound

Kate Richardson — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:22:32 GMT

[quote user="Rajat"]

the scan room is often a calming oasis (dark room, quiet etc) in what can be a crazy day all around us! Can get addictive!

[/quote]

Oh yes!! The peace and quiet.....wonderful.

Re: Forays into Ultrasound

Rajat — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 09:29:40 GMT

Hi Emily

Good advice by all - practice loads, scan everything you can, and practice some more. Slightly steep learning curve but a lot of fun.

[quote user="Emily Herskind Nightingale"]

1) which reading material would you recommend (assuming I know next to nothing!) -

There are a couple of good books- BSAVA manual is a good starting point, but would definitely recommend getting Nyland and Mattoon's diagnostic ultrasound - fantastic book detailed enough to answer most quwestions though looks a bit dated sometimes, and doesn't have as many fancy piccies as I would like, the breadth is really good

2) are there any good courses (so far have looked at cpd solutions and improve international) but any other suggestions would be great!

RVC run good courses- Livia B also runs courses for CPD solutions I think - but worth using these as an intro/time to practice the difficult/challenging things as practicing everyday is what gets you better not courses

3) what machine should we be looking at for primarily abdominal scans?

So many avilable it is tough to recommend one. Many second hand human machines can do a good job and are very cheap. We have good results with Esaotie Mylab series (Imotek may be worth contacting). Many other vets use it too. BCF technology are also very helpful.Make sure you get a sector probe and a linear probe- linear is really useful for cat abdomens and usually can get upto 10mhz (at least) with a good quality linear probe which allows detailed interpretation just not poss with a lower frequency sector transducer.

4) any pitfalls/general comments

It is worth spending the bit of extra money on a good machine and also worth maybe seeing practice with a specialist imager or having one come to you like you do for cardio to watch - when I started I could have skipped many a frustrating hour if I had someone to watch/teach me! Like Kate, when I started I too mis-diagnosed a blood clot in the bladder for a tumour- it was embarassing to say the least!!

Any information would be really greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[/quote]

Best of luck and happy scanning- as you prob already know the scan room is often a calming oasis (dark room, quiet etc) in what can be a crazy day all around us! Can get addictive!

Re: Forays into Ultrasound

Elizabeth Tuley — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 08:21:44 GMT

I've done the CPD Solutions 'Introduction to Abdominal Ultrasound' course which was very good - very orientated towards the practical. I'm a complete ultrasound novice and found it was aimed really well at the beginner.

Re: Forays into Ultrasound

Kate Richardson — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 19:14:58 GMT

[quote user="bob lehner"]I don't think scanning is a subject which lends itself to being read about - you just need to practice a lot.[/quote]

Couldn't agree more strongly. Practice practice practice.

You need a good course first so you can first work on finding and examining the organs correctly. Improve did a great course where I went once a month for 4 months (this was about 5 years ago now though so don't know what they do now) and had the loan of a machine from BCF during this 4 months- after each session you went away for a month to practice what you had learnt and at the end if you bought the machine, you got a significant discount on the course. Then lot of practice scanning lots of normal animals- ask if you can scan anything clipped up for an abdo op. With time comes recognition of whats normal, whats abnormal and very importantly whats artefact. The good news is that if you are the dedicated ultrasonographer in the practice you will get everyone asking you to scan cases- just make sure you tell them that in the early days, you are still going to be learning as I had a few colleagues wanting detailed diagnoses and asking me what was going on when I had only had the probe on for about 10 seconds!! . Depending on your case load it may take the good part of a year before you start to feel some confidence in what you are seeing and your interpretation! I was lucky in that we had a specialist ultrasonographer visit our practice regularly as well, so I had the benefit of being able to scan animals (FOC sometimes but not always) and then she would scan them and it really helped my confidence when her findings backed mine up, and when there were things I couldn't work out or interpret, I learnt what they were. Shall never forget my first rather large urinary blood clot that I thought was a tumour and had completely disappeared when scanned by the specialist a couple of days later! Rather embarassed

Re: Forays into Ultrasound

bob lehner — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 17:15:31 GMT

The quality and clarity of modern scanners is so good that after a fairly basic course you should be able to do quite a lot of useful stuff in first opinion practice. All somewhat easier that when scanners first appeared and it was rather like looking at a snow storm on the screen.

To this end, try and persuade the boss to buy a nice shiny new machine rather than some crappy old second-hand item.

I don't think scanning is a subject which lends itself to being read about - you just need to practice a lot.

Re: Forays into Ultrasound

James Laidlaw — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 15:52:31 GMT

I just finished Bernard Walsh's course at scanvet in Caterham - was worth every penny, small class, very hands on and a good tutor. Think they are doing more - there's a website for them if you google scanvet.

Think the BSAVA manuals are pretty good - not sure what the purists bible would be though!