Ultrasonography Use in Emergency Health Services
Abstract
Ultrasonography (US) technology, which is currently used to facilitate the diagnosis and treatment of myriad conditions, was introduced into
the field of medicine in 1940s. US has been increasingly spreading to nearly all branches of medicine in proportion to the developments in US
technology. Therefore, pre-hospital emergency healthcare providers routinely use small size portable devices, even in ambulances, during the transfer
of patients from the field to the hospital, which reduces the diagnosis and triage time of the patients and increases the survival rates relatively.
However, due to the lack of necessary training activities, proper use of US devices constitutes a professional challenge for pre-hospital emergency
healthcare providers. Although there are some in-service training programs targeting the use of US, a more functional and ideal approach should
be to integrate both the theoretical and practical knowledge pertaining to US into the educational curricula of the related departments in the
universities. A possible program should be mainly pragmatic by focusing on the life-threatening conditions in the pre-hospital area.
Keywords
Emergency Health Care, Pre-hospital, Ultrasonography
Ethical Statement
Ethics
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.
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