Point-of-Care Ultrasound Training Program Established for Regional Anesthesiologists

Regional anesthesia specialists have developed an innovative ultrasound training program.

Leading German anesthetists Drs. Wolf Armbruster, Rüdiger Eichholz, and Thomas Notheisen have collaborated to develop the Armbruster Eichholz Notheisen (AEN) training concept for ultrasound-guided regional anesthesia. The three specialists in regional anesthesia, all certified DEGUM (German Association for Ultrasound in Medicine) trainers, are using SonoSite (Bothell, WA, USA) point-of-care ultrasound instruments in their daily practice, as well as during many of the ultrasound training courses they conduct around Germany.

Wolf Armbruster, head of the department at the Evangelisches Krankenhaus (Unna, Germany), said, “My colleagues and I wanted to share our enthusiasm for ultrasound and promote it as a useful and accessible technique, so together we created a comprehensive portfolio of teaching material, including 3-D [three-dimensional] illustrations and videos, and now regularly conduct training courses based on this concept.”

Ruediger Eichholz, an anesthetist at the Berufsgenossenschaftliche Unfallklinik (BGU; Tübingen, Germany), added, “Our courses are designed to cover a whole range of applications in the anesthetic and ICU [intensive care unit] fields; not just analgesia and nerve blocks, but also focused scanning for intensive care. We are aiming to teach our fellow anesthetists how to get a good ultrasound image and perform successful and safe invasive procedures. To do this effectively, we need small ultrasound devices such as those from SonoSite, which give good image quality and are easy to use for people who are not familiar with ultrasound as a technique.”

Thomas Notheisen, a fellow anesthetist at BGU Tübingen, agreed, “We believe that it is very important for the participants to be able to use ultrasound instruments during a course. In our experience, SonoSite instruments have the best presets for regional anesthesia, making it possible for even beginners to achieve good quality images and identify the nerves far more easily.”

Related Links:
SonoSite
Evangelisches Krankenhaus
Berufsgenossenschaftliche Unfallklinik