Hospital Medicine Point of Care Ultrasonography (HM-POCUS) is a relatively new and dynamic field. The idea is simple: bring US – a powerful, portable, real time imaging technique – to the bedside. We, a group of hospitalists at Weill Cornell/New York Hospital, are proud and excited to be part of this emerging field. 

Our HM-POCUS program is one of the largest in the country. Our faculty spans two hospitals, has taught ultrasound at national level (ACP and SHM) and is involved in developing policy around HM-POCUS sponsored by Society for Hospital Medicine. Unlike most places, our qualified faculty now has hospital privileges in point of care ultrasonography. 

We teach essentially on every level: medical students, medicine residents, internal medicine fellows, hospitalists, and PAs. Aside from the introductory classes, we offer a 2-tier (1 week x2) program in HM-POCUS, the program which has been designed to train participants to proficiency. The program included didactic material, extensive image review and hands-on scanning of life models. During the scanning our student-to-faculty is set to not exceed 3-1, but has not yet exceeded 2-1. During our last class learners had 15 hours of one-on-one supervised “probe time” per week! Our training course does not end with 1-2 week “boot camp.” We have implemented longitudinal year-long curriculum which includes hands-on supervised scanning sessions and image review. Finally, in order to complete the course, participants must also complete a portfolio of images and teach entry-level POCUS to others. 

Of course, POCUS did not originate within hospital medicine, but after originating within emergency medicine arrived to us via critical care. Most of our program’s core faculty has completed training in ICU POCUS offered by the American Society of Chest Physicians (ACCP). Although at our institution hospitalists are the main practitioners and teachers of bedside ultrasonography, we continue to learn from other groups. Our monthly POCUS conference is a forum where IM, ER, Critical Care, Radiology and Cardiology comes together to discuss cases.