Clinical Ultrasonography
The rapid and constant technological development experienced in the field of medicine, especially in its diagnostic techniques, has obliged all specialties to adapt and undergo expert training in order to handle them.
Although internists consider our basic and indispensable diagnostic tools to be the skilful interrogation (anamnesis) and the exhaustive physical examination, which provide us with the key clues to establish a consistent diagnostic suspicion, we cannot renounce to also use technology as a complement and help in this initial diagnostic process.
In this sense, the management and knowledge of basic ultrasound has provided us with a weapon of enormous value in the initial assessment of patients, accelerating the diagnostic process and avoiding unnecessary tests for the patient. The internist does not intend to establish an ultrasound diagnosis, but rather to achieve a better initial diagnostic orientation, in which ultrasound is another aid element: it is what we call “clinical ultrasound”. The ultrasound diagnosis should always be the responsibility of radiologists, who are the specialists with the necessary training and experience.
Within the Spanish Society of Internal Medicine there is the Working Group of Clinical Ultrasonography (fesemi.org), which is responsible for promoting and disseminating this very useful tool among internists on a national level. Dr. Pablo García Cabrera, responsible for the Clinical Ultrasonography Unit of our team, and Dr. Javier Moreno Izarra both belong to this Working Group.
Caption: from left to right:
– Gallbladder. Vesicular hydrops with mural thickening and biliary sludge: acute cholecystitis.
– Thyroid gland. Small cystic nodule in left lobe.
– Right femoral vascular package, below the groin, without signs of venous thrombosis.
