US Guided Central Venous Catheter Kit Walk Through

This is a video from operator point of view of the placement of an ultrasound guided IJ central venous catheter.  The video uses a head mounted camera so there is a bit of movement so warning if you get motion illness early.

Yes I know, the bedside table had to be elevated for the camera angle and images so the edge of the kit wrapping relative to the drape is not ideal for sterile technique.

The video uses a Cook Spectrum antibiotic impregnated catheter with a Biopatch, chlorhexidine impregnated bandage.  Central line kits and contents will vary based upon manufacturer and customization.

Video provided for educational and informational purposes only.

I do not currently receive any funding or support from Cook or Biopatch.

Central Venous Catheter Task Trainer Phantom with Purple Vessels

If you are using task trainer procedural phantoms for ultrasound guided vascular access you may notice a problem over time.  The phantom vessels may start to be filled with purple fluid.  If you have blue and red liquid to differentiate the artery versus vein in the phantom there are 2 reasons you could have purple fluid.

  1. Aspiration of fluid from one vessel and re-injection into the other, mixing the red and blue to form purple.
  2. There is a fistulous connection between the artery and the vein.

If the purple fluid is due to aspiration and injection of fluid from one vessel into the other that is easy to fix.  Drain and refill the vessels with red and blue.  Then instruct your users not to re-inject the fluid in to the phantom vessel.  Instead dispense of the aspirate into a container on the side with a separate one for each color.  This will prevent mixing and injection of air in to the vessels leading to artifacts.  This will also prevent the accidental injection of fluid in to the phantom tissue itself which can damage the inserts and reduce the life of the phantom.  You can then inject the fluid through the fill port later.

The other reason is if you have a fistula between the vessels.  The following video shows what an aterio-venous fistula can appear like on the phantom with both an electronic and hand pump model.

One way to fix both problems is to fill the vessels with a single color fluid so if there is mixing or a fistula it won’t matter.

Resident Education in Ultrasound Using Simulation and Social Media AIUM14

There was a session at the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine 2014 Annual Meeting focusing on education in Point of Care Ultrasound.  There were several speakers and I was asked to speak on resident education, particularly to focus on simulation and social media and how it fits with EM Resident ultrasound education.  This is a fairly large and broad area to cover in 15 minutes or less.

I chose to focus on how to simulation and social media can assist in education and deliberate practice to get learners to an “expert performance” level.  The information may not be new to people who are familiar with simulation or social media. My goal was to show how these things can be helpful from a conceptual and design view for education.  Also to provide information that you can use if you have to justify to others why social media or simulation is important to your educational program and why it should be supported.

This is a recording of the presentation, sorry the audio is not as clear but did not have the external microphone for the recording.