Ultrasound technology becoming so advanced it can be used in emergencies outside a hospital, doctor's office
PHOENIX - Doctors may no longer ask you to take a deep breath while they listen to your lungs. Now, they might just look at them instead.
Medical residents working to become practicing doctors were trained in Phoenix on June 12 on ultrasound devices that are changing the way they treat health issues.
Portable ultrasounds are actually nothing new, though. They first started on the battlefield in war zones.
However, they've become so effective and so easy. All medical doctors might soon carry them, but first, they need to learn how to use them.
'This is transforming how we take care of patients'
The stethoscope around Dr. Manny Mathew's neck is about to be a relic.
He's a pulmonary critical care physician at Banner University Medical Center.
"That's going away. What we're going to be able to do, what we used to listen for, now we're going to be able to see," he explained.
Dr. Mathew showed firsthand, in less than 30 seconds, a portable ultrasound that he used to look inside his own body.
"I must be a little dehydrated because the vessel next to my carotid artery is collapsible and that's the internal jugular vein up top," Dr. Mathew explained.
This is the future – in action.
LEARN MORE ABOUT WHAT ULTRASOUNDS CAN DETECT HERE
The hospital classrooms at Banner University Medical Center are filled with first-year interns learning something new.
"It's shifting from an optional skill to really a mandatory skill because we've proven it improves outcomes, and it improves our ability to treat patients fast," said Dr. Alexis Bailey, an internal medicine resident for the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
Ultrasounds now require appointments and a machine to get internal imagining.
"The limiting factor is they're confined to the office," Dr. Mathew said.
However, with a phone app, that's all changing.
"It's amazing. This is transforming how we take care of patients," he said.
EMTs, general practitioners, all medical professionals may be able to use these in the next decade.
"Now we're at the point where the technology is good enough, where it could be in a medical bag in our offices. Where we could do house visits and do it at homes. So it will be the standard of care for everyone," Dr. Mathew said.
He now carries his with him and went over a scenario when he might need it.
If he's on a plane and there's a medical emergency, he can perform an ultrasound on a patient with shortness of breath or chest pains and triage them effectively right there on the plane.
It could be lifesaving.