Happy Friday, everyone! Today iTeachU Education Group will talk about how echocardiography can change management of patients. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Why will echocardiography change management of patients? For the last few posts, iTeachU Education Group has outlined the case scenario of an old lady who fractured her hip and required surgery. During the operation under spinal anaesthesia, she became severely hypotensive and died. If she had had an echocardiography before her surgery, a diagnosis of severe aortic stenosis would have been made. Echocardiography changes the physician from being a reactive therapist to a proactive therapist! What do we mean by this? The reactive therapist assumes that the patient is okay and then treats complications such as severe hypotension after they occur. The proactive therapist knows that hypotension is predictable in a patient with severe aortic stenosis undergoing surgery and plans and manages the anaesthetic so as to avoid that. This is illustrated in the two figures below: The reactive therapist just treats the complications when they occur, with out knowing why those complications have occurred. The proactive therapist predicts potential complications and plans and manages the patient so as to avoid those complications It is really quite easy! In this case, the proactive therapist knowing that severe aortic stenosis was presented, would have managed the patient very differently. It is likely that the patient would not have had an intraoperative complication and probably survives the operation. Remember: “Better diagnosis makes smarter doctors Smarter doctors treat patients better” Please click iteachu.net for more information about our ultrasound education.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 00:17:04 +0000