Point-of-care ultrasound in critically ill patients: Where do we stand?

Experience over the last 25 years has shown that point-of-care ultrasound is a very useful tool when used by nonradiologists. Its value will be optimized by understanding its limitations and by adopting a focused binary decision making approach to answer specific questions without going into detailed radiological studies. Point-of-care ultrasound became an extension of the clinical examination. There are extensive efforts trying to design low-cost portable ultrasound systems by changing the transducer design, the transmission and reception circuitry needs, or the beam forming algorithms which may lead to horizontal expansion of the use of reliable non expensive portable ultrasound machines. The successful story of using ultrasound by nonradiologists, the advanced technology, and the refinement of the educational methods will encourage future clinicians to use ultrasound in their domains.