The course was held as part of the 17th edition of the WINFOCUS World Congress. The event, which lasted from 1 to 4 December, gathered over 21,000 participants from 127 countries. The formula of the congress made it possible to organize ultrasound workshops (POW = "Point-Of-care One-world Workshop") in 100 training centres around the world and in 18 time zones simultaneously. Thanks to POW, over 2,500 people took part in the course. At the MUW it was possible thanks to the efforts and commitment of Paweł Andruszkiewicz PhD and Mateusz Zawadka MD PhD from the 2nd Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care of the MUW UCC.
The workshop was open to people without experience in the field of transthoracic echocardiography, working in the conditions of emergency medicine, intensive care and anaesthesiology. - The content of the course is based on the international consensus of the International Evidence-Based Recommendations for Focused Cardiac Ultrasound - said Mateusz Zawadka MD PhD. He added: - The most prominent issues presented during the course concerned the use of a simplified echocardiographic examination for the diagnosis of life-threatening conditions, peri-arrest conditions, haemodynamic instability and unexplained hypotension.
The course included five workshop hours. Due to the practical nature of the training, each group consisted of a maximum of four participants. The group of instructors, apart from specialists from the MUW, included also excellent experts in the field of point-of-care ultrasound representing other national centres: Professor Mirosław Czuczwar MD PhD, Dorota Sobczyk MD PhD, Wojciech Gola MD PhD, Paula Dudek MD.
To date, WINFOCUS (The World Interactive Network Focused on Critical Ultrasound; https://www.winfocus.org/) has delivered over 2,000 courses in 67 countries. The intention of WINFOCUS is to promote the unique usefulness of point-of-care ultrasound in life-threatening conditions among medics from around the world. WINFOCUS celebrates 3rd December as "PoCUS Awareness Day".
