Point of Care Ultrasound Workshops

Dates / Locations

POINT OF CARE
Wellington, NZ	October 9 & 10, 2008 FULLY SUBSCRIBED
NERVE BLOCKS & VASCULAR ACCESS
Melbourne	September 20 & 21, 2008 - FULLY SUBSCRIBED
Cairns	May 07 & 08, 2009 - FULLY SUBSCRIBED
Melbourne	October 03 & 04, 2009
HEARTscan
Hobart	November 15 & 16, 2008 - FULLY SUBSCRIBED
Melbourne	February 14 & 15, 2009 - FULLY SUBSCRIBED
Auckland, N.Z.	March 19 & 20, 2009
Cairns	April 30 & May 01, 2009
Darwin	September 03 & 04, 2009
Sydney	November 14 & 15, 2009

Registration fee for 2008 Workshops = $1200.00 (inclusive of GST) AUD

Registration fee for 2009 Workshops = $1250.00 (inclusive of GST) AUD

The Point of Care Ultrasound course is a stand alone hands-on workshop, independent from the Postgraduate Diploma in Perioperative and Critical Care Course. Registrants do not need to have enrolled in the Postgraduate Diploma in order to attend the Point of Care Ultrasound course.

How to get someone to Pay for the Training

Workshops are designed for Anaesthetists, Intensive Care and Emergency Department Physicians who wish to learn how to use Point of Care (POC) transthoracic and vascular ultrasound techniques.

Point of Care Ultrasound for Perioperative & Critical Care

This Workshop is an introduction to a variety of surface ultrasound applications in perioperative and critical care medicine. Core learning areas are:-

1 Basic transthoracic imaging
2 Haemodynamic state assessment including the measurement of cardiac output
3 Use of ultrasound to identify major nerve bundles for regional anaesthesia
4 Identification of vessels for cannulation including internal jugular, femoral, and forearm vessels
5 Trauma ultrasound

Ultrasound Guided Nerve Blocks and Vascular Access

This Workshop is designed to cover ultrasound guided interventions in greater detail than the Point of Care Ultrasound for Perioperative & Critical Care course. Core learning areas are:-

1 Identification of vessels for cannulation including internal jugular, femoral, and forearm vessels
2 Brachial plexus blocks
3 Lower limb blocks
4 Peripheral nerve blocks
5 Thoracic and abdominal nerve blocks

HEARTscan - Haemodynamic Echocardiography Assessment in Real Time

This course is designed to extend your experience and training with transthoracic echocardiography. Core learning areas are:

1 Basic transthoracic imaging
2 Haemodynamic state assessment including the measurement of cardiac output
3 Basic assessment of valves using 2D and colour flow Doppler imaging
4 HEARTscan examination
5 HEARTscan reporting and examples

Tutorials
Interactive tutorials will be sent to registrants on DVD one month prior to the Workshop date. These will introduce topics and provide basic theoretical information to be covered in the Workshop. It is expected that registrants study these and learn the theoretical component prior to the Workshop. This will ensure Workshop time is devoted to hands-on learning and practice.

Workshop structure
Each Workshop contains ten hours of hands-on activity. Two hours is dedicated to each core learning area. Techniques will be demonstrated and participants will practice using ultrasound systems. Registrants will be divided into small groups (maximum of five per group) and groups will rotate through each core learning area station.

Workshop Times
Day One 0900 - 1700 hrs
Day Two 0930 - 1430 hrs

There will be 30 min allocated to each morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea break. Workshop Directors
The Workshop Directors will be members of the Development Faculty from the city in which the Workshop is being held.

Accreditation for Continuing Medical Education (CME)
MOPS points have been awarded by the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists, the Joint Faculty of Intensive Care, and the Australasian College of Emergency Medicine and Royal Australasian College of Surgeons.

Course cost

2008 AUD$ 1,200 (inclusive of GST)

2009 AUD$ 1,250 (inclusive of GST)

Cost includes: Set of interactive tutorials on DVD, and all Workshop catering (morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea each day).

Registration and Course Size
Group size is limited to 25 people per Workshop. Please telephone first to ensure availability before sending payment and registration form. Once payment is received, you will receive a confirmation pack, including venue details. You will receive interactive tutorials one month prior to Workshop.

Cancellation
Full refund will be provided if cancellation is received in writing more than 30 days prior to the Workshop date. After this date, 100% cancellation fee will occur, unless the registrant transfers to next available Workshop. In the event that a Workshop is cancelled or re-scheduled, registrants will have the option of receiving a full refund, or transferring to an alternate Workshop.

Further information
Please contact Trish Lapenas at the Department of Pharmacology, The University of Melbourne.
Tel: 03 8344 5673
Fax: 03 8344 5193
Email: echo-info@unimelb.edu.au

Development Faculty

Associate Professor Colin Royse MBBS, MD (Melb), FANZCA
Executive, Cardiovascular Therapeutics Unit, Department of Pharmacology, University of Melbourne; Consultant Anaesthetist, Royal Melbourne Hospital
Associate Professor Alistair Royse MBBS, MD (Melb), FRACS, FCSANZ
Executive, Cardiovascular Therapeutics Unit, Department of Pharmacology, University of Melbourne; Cardiothoracic Surgeon, Royal Melbourne Hospital
Dr Christopher Ashley
Consultant Anaesthetist, Westmead Hospital
Dr John Faris, DAvMed, FAFOM, FFOM, FANZCA, BA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital
Dr Lenore George MBBS, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Westmead Hospital
Dr Roman Kluger MBBS, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, St Vincentâ€™s Hospital, Melbourne
Dr Ajay Kumar MBBS, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Westmead Hospital
Dr James Lai MBBS, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Auckland City Hospital
Dr Neil MacLennan, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Auckland City Hospital
Dr Chris Nixon MB.ChB, FRCA, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Auckland City Hospital
Dr James Rippey MBBS, FACEM
Consultant Emergency
Dr Paul Soeding BscHon, MBBS, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Royal Melbourne Hospital
Dr Konstantin Yastrebov MD, PhD
Consultant Anaesthetist, Mersey Community Hospital
Dr Michael Veltman MBBS, FANZCA
Consultant Anaesthetist, Royal Perth Hospital
Ms Danielle Nicholas DMU (Cardiac), AMS
Research Ultrasound Technologist, Department of Pharmacology, University of Melbourne
Dr Peter Hebbard MB.BS, FANZCA, PG Dip Echo
Consultant Anaesthetist, North East Health Wangaratta

How to use the course materials

You will be posted DVDs containing the subjects and tutorials. We advise that you copy the entire contents of the DVD onto the hard drive of your computer. The video loops in particular will not run well from the DVD itself. Each tutorial contains movie images in its labeled subfolders. Eg: "Haemodynamic State Assessment". You'll need to open the Word document to reveal the tutorial. All still images and diagrams are embedded within the Word document, but movie files are a curse for anyone producing an educational package for echocardiography! There are so many different movie formats and so many different computers out there, that is very difficult to make movie files work in an elegant way for everyone. What we have done is to produce video files in the most compatible format such as AVI or MPEG 1 formats. Although later CODECs produce better quality videos, there is a high-risk that many delegates would not be able to play them. We have inserted hyperlinks in the document which will allow you to load the movie files. In many instances, you will see a picture which is the leading image of the movie file and below it you'll see a hyperlink. For some file formats, we could only insert the hyperlink. By pressing the control button and clicking on the hyperlink, you will load the movie image. If all else fails, all the movie files used in the tutorial are held within the subfolders and can be opened with the relevant media player. We aim for all movie files to be playable with either QuickTime and or Windows media player. Both of these players are available as free downloads from the Web and we strongly recommend that you have both QuickTime and Windows media player installed on your computer before you start the course.

Go through each tutorial and be happy with that prior to attending the course. As a special note, there is an accompanying DVD to the basic transthoracic echocardiography tutorial which has been produced by John Faris and Michael Veltman. This is a 20 minute video of how to find and perform the views used in transthoracic imaging.

Special instructions for MAC users

MAC users pose special problems for us as the course is written for PC’s. Never mind, the tutorials will work on a MAC but if you have problems, please take particular note of the following aspects. For those of you with a fast MAC, you might find it easier to run the tutorials under virtual PC if you have that program installed. Make sure you check which version of Virtual PC is suitable for your level of MAC!

The tutorials run using Word for MAC. The one problem you may have is in playing the video loops from the hyperlinks. If your program will not open the video loops, then do the following:

Press Ctrl and click with your mouse on the hyperlink at the same time. This will bring up a selection menu. Click on "update field". When you read click on the hyperlink it should now play the movie. You will have to do this for each of the hyperlinks. I would suggest then that you save the new version to your hard drive so that when you review the tutorial later, you do not have to go through this process again. If all else fails, you should be able to directly open the movie file from the subfolder using QuickTime. All the video files are labeled so that you will know which one to open. If anyone comes up with a more elegant solution for MAC users please let me know!

If you have problems try this solution as was identified by one of our postgraduate diploma course students for 2004.

Subject3, Tutorial 3 the avi files don't open on my Apple OS10.3 I think the trouble is they have been prepared with a codec which i can't recognize. I can open some with my Video LAN DVD software, but not all.(I suspect other OS10.3 users will have the same problems when they get to the tutorial

The problem I was having seems to be that the video files, although .avi, are prepared in a variety of formats. The commonest files were in formats that were running without problem (incl. cinepak, MPEG muxed, MPEG 1, etc). The ones I couldn't open (eg used in Subject 3 , tutorial 3 and tutorial 6 ) are 'MP42'.....I'm not sure what this format is (it sounds like the latest) but standard Quicktime viewer will not open it. A solution I've found is to use 'VLC'. This is a free download from http://www.videolan.org/ (and comes in Windows, Apple OS10, and Linux). If the default settings won't continuously play some loops (ie only plays the loop thru once and then closes) - the solution is to go to 'window' in the VLC menu bar and click on 'controller', then open the 'playlist' button in the VLC controller and click the ' repeat one' button. VLC is a useful piece of software to have in any case for a variety of other purposes (possibly even purposes that don't infringe copyright) where you need to open compressed or unusual video or movie files, zoned DVDs etc.

The format of each tutorial has been standardised to include an introduction, overview, statement of objectives, effective learning module with the information packaged into small pieces with examples and interactive segments where possible, a glossary, and references.

You may choose to print the tutorials, but they are designed to be studied at the computer to enable you to view the movie files

Course Communications

Although course materials will be posted to you, we expect that most course administration will occur via e-mail. It is really difficult for us to know if you have received the course material. We ask that when you receive the material from us, you acknowledge receipt of same by email to -. echo-info@unimelb.edu.au We also request that you acknowledge all e-mails sent to you. As a routine, we will tag the e-mails with a "read receipt". We ask that you also enable read receipt. If you choose to disable it, then ensure that you respond to us with an e-mail.

The e-mail address for all course communication will be:
echo-info@unimelb.edu.au

Copyright Issues

The contents of this course and the intellectual property relating to it are the property of the University of Melbourne. None of the material or any of the images or movie clips may be reproduced in a publication without our permission. We are very pleased however, for you to use any images for educational purposes such as tutorials, presentations to audiences, conferences, etc. provided the source is acknowledged.