Dr. Joey Newbigging
Emergency Medicine POCUS Director
POCUS is integral to modern emergency medicine practice and will be an integral part of resident training starting from week one. By third year we expect all residents to be competent and able to independently perform all types of diagnostic and procedural POCUS.
The emphasis on POCUS as an essential skill begins in our Summer Bootcamp Series. Every year all residents participate in a POCUS course on core applications (free fluid abdomen, subxiphoid cardiac, abdominal aorta, basic lung and first trimester pregnancy). This is followed with by-weekly 1:2 teacher:learner supervised scanning shifts.
In the summer of the PGY2 year, before the ICU rotation, residents complete a mini-horizontal central line POCUS course emphasizing repetitive deliberate practice in POCUS procedural needle guidance. Every year are 3-4 POCUS workshops for the entire residency program that feature advanced applications (eg. advanced cardiac, nerve blocks, gallbladder, DVT, renal etc). Senior residents are involved as instructors for these workshops.
All residents complete an Advanced POCUS rotation in their PGY2 or PGY3 year. This rotation consists of supervised scanning shifts with POCUS fellowship trained faculty. Residents will develop POCUS competence in gallbladder, advanced cardiac, lung, IVC, DVT, MSK, soft tissue, nerve blocks, vascular access and POCUS protocols. We have regular EM POCUS rounds, multidisciplinary QSonic POCUS rounds, a breakfast POCUS Journal Club and an annual Sonogames.
Residents will have ample opportunity to teach POCUS to other learners such as medical students and more junior residents. After gaining competence in core applications, they are eligible to challenge the CPOCUS Independent Practitioner examination (www.cpocus.ca). On completion of residency all residents will have a POCUS portfolio of all of their studies completed during residency. Both the Hotel Dieu Urgent Care Centre and Kingston General Hospital have POCUS machines with an assortment of probes to allow for ample practice while you are working clinically and are linked with image archiving and feedback software.
Queen’s EM is a POCUS forward program with a faculty culture that emphasises POCUS use in all aspects of patient care.
POCUS Fellowship website - https://criticalcare.queensu.ca/pocus
For more information: POCUS@queensu.ca