Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) for the General Practitioner

Course Description

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is a rapidly evolving field in veterinary medicine, especially in Emergency Medicine. Ultrasound machines are often available to practitioners, but training is lacking. There is limited training in veterinary school and the post-graduate training is not uniform. Unfortunately, this means your brand-new shining machine may be sitting in a corner of your clinic collecting dust or being used only for cystocentesis!

In this course, you will work with experts in emergency medicine and critical care with many years of experience teaching POCUS and you will learn how to use your machine appropriately. This course is mainly designed to use the ultrasound machine as a point-of-care in an emergency situation but will also teach you to use it as a tool for abdominal ultrasound. The great thing about this course is that you will learn to ultrasound the abdomen, the chest, and the heart!

You will be provided in-person lectures on the three types of POCUS in the morning, followed by a 4-hours hands-on lab on anesthetized small to medium breed dogs. The same pattern will be repeated on Day 2, which allows for repetition and building on those motor skills. This lab is a great way to learn, practice or refine your skills in POCUS. We feel confident that, after this course, you will be set to go back to your practice and start applying your skills from Day 1.

Instructors

Dr. Julien Guillaumin, Assoc. Professor, DVM, DACVECC, DECVECC

Dr Guillaumin is currently an Associate Professor in Emergency and Critical Care at Colorado State University. After graduating from the Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Nantes, France, Dr Guillaumin pursued a small animal rotating internship at the Ecole Nationale Veterinaire d’Alfort, France. After graduation, he worked in both private practice emergency settings and academia, serving as a clinical instructor in Emergency and Critical Care at the Ecole Nationale Veterinaire de Lyon (now VetAgroSup). Dr Guillaumin continued his advanced training in Emergency and Critical Care by moving to the US in 2005, working as a clinical instructor at Cornell University and then completed his ACVECC residency at the University of California, Davis in 2009. For 10 years, Dr Guillaumin was a clinician, teacher and researcher as a clinical track Assistant, then Associate Professor at the Ohio State University. He also acted as the Blood Bank Director. In 2015, Dr Guillaumin was recognized as an invited diplomate of the European College of Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care. In 2019, Dr Guillaumin took a tenure-track position at Colorado State University. His clinical and research interests include thrombosis and thrombolysis, hemostasis, blood banking, transfusion medicine, sepsis and septic shock. Dr Guillaumin is a former Chair of the ACVECC residency training committee and currently serves as a Chair of the Joint Committee which oversees the work of the 3 major ACVECC Committees as well as a member of the ECVECC Education Committee. Dr Guillaumin has trained over 150 interns and ECC residents and has over 200 invited lectures and scholarly publications.

Dr. Lance Visser, DVM, MS, DACVIM (Cardiology)

Dr. Visser is from Grand Rapids, Michigan. He obtained a BS in 2007 and combined DVM/MS in 2010 from Michigan State University. He then completed a small animal rotating internship at North Carolina State University in 2011. He completed a combined residency/MS program in Cardiology at The Ohio State University in 2014. Dr. Visser recently joined Colorado State University where he is an Associate Professor of Cardiology. Prior to this, he was at the University of California, Davis (2014 - 2021). His primary research interest is improving the noninvasive assessment of cardiac structure and function with an emphasis on the echocardiographic assessment of the right heart.

Dr. Amanda Cavanagh, DVM, DACVECC

Amanda Cavanagh, DVM, DACVECC, is an Assistant Professor of Small Animal Emergency and Critical Care at Colorado State University College of Veterinary Medicine and is the section head of the Emergency Service. Dr Cav received her undergraduate degree from Georgetown University in Washington DC. She then received her DVM from Auburn University in 2011 and acquired ACVECC board certification after completing a residency at North Carolina State University in 2015. Dr. Cavanagh has a special interest in point of care ultrasound, traumatology, and toxicology. She is owned by 4 lovely children, two moderately dyspneic pugs, and two hairless cats with an impressive multi-season, holiday inclusive wardrobe.