Surface Cardiac Ultrasound

This is not a full echocardiographic examination. Training in echocardiography is a multilayer process that requires extensive training and certification and not the scope of practice of the Anesthesiologist. Instead, focused cardiac ultrasound, which is a component of POCUS, was borne out of the need to have access to this powerful technology while not overburdening the provider with a detailed understanding of all the capabilities and only with a limited number of views. 

The essence of Focused Cardiac Ultrasound (FoCUS) is mainly for a dichotomous interpretation of findings to answer questions that are crucial to the clinical decision-making process.  It aims to gather sufficient information to assess physiologic status and the reduction of diagnostic uncertainty by narrowing the range of viable diagnosis. The diagnostic approach of FoCUS is qualitative or semiquantitative and the examination is conducted without the requirement of performing specific measurements. Qualitative appreciation of sizes and function (e.g., the right ventricle is dilated or nondilated, normokinetic or hypokinetic) or semiquantification of ranges of function (e.g., the left ventricle is hyperkinetic, normokinetic, hypokinetic, or severely hypokinetic) represents the modus operandi of FoCUS. 

We start by becoming expert sonographers at performing the following 5 FoCUSed views.