The personalized CCUS Institute’s Mini-Fellowships (CME-eligible) are focused on bedside ultrasound and designed to take clinicians with some degree of proficiency in basic ultrasound to a whole other level. The opportunity to follow a seasoned clinical ER/ICU sonographer and see actual cases, learn the clinical integration of ultrasound data into decision-making is a unique one, outside of a handful of residency programs whose faculty includes experienced bedside sonographers. Basic how-to courses are great, and certainly the first step for those clinicians adding ultrasound to their armamentarium, but what we have seen, sadly, is after initial enthusiasm, many don’t really pick up the probe because the confidence to “make the call” simply isn’t there. Yet.

In a sense, it’s almost as if, as medical students, we’d read Bates, practiced physical exam on each (more or less normal ) other, and were then set out to make diagnoses and treat without having residents and attendings around to confirm our findings a few times, until we got the hang of it. Hmm. That would be rough.

Some physicians are fortunate enough to practice in a center where there are a few “veterans” of bedside ultrasound and can gain some acumen that way, but others may be the ones spearheading their institution into the 21st century, and it is from the comments of several of those, attending the CCUS Symposium (2008-2014 – perhaps a return in 2017) asking for the possibility of shadowing some of us, that the Mini-Fellowships came to be.

Mini-Fellowship Structure

Montreal Mini-Fellowship: Participants shadow one of our instructors (ICU attending) during the regular working days and discuss the cases and ultrasound-relevant aspect of each case (more often than not the case in entirety), and are able to practice their ultrasound skills. The duration is flexible although we generally suggest a minimum of two or three days. Each day would usually be about 6-8 hours, some may be more.

Toronto Mini-Fellowship: Participants get a dedicated and highly experienced preceptor (Dr. Edgar Hockmann) who is not on clinical service but with access to the ICU patients, and will provide a structured and dynamic session adapted to the participant’s needs and abilities.

The case exposure will be mainly ICU as well as ER and ward patients. The focus will be on acute care issues. After two days, participants who had a basic ability in ultrasound should be fairly comfortable with assessing volume status, cardiac function, perform lung ultrasound, be able to identify and assess intrathoracic and intr-abdominal fluid collections, assess the kidneys, bladder and gall bladder, measure optic nerve sheath, assess carotid flow and some may have exposure to trans-cranial doppler. The focus may be shifted depending on a participant’s interest.

This takes place in Montreal, Quebec or Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Participants will have the opportunity to work with handhelds, midrange and high-end ultrasound devices.

Space is limited as we can generally only accommodate 1-3 participants per month.

CME

So, great news, finally went thru the CME process and lo and behold, the Mini-Fellowships qualify for 25 Section 2 credits (regardless of the length) and 3 hours of Section 3 credits (per day of fellowship). For you americans:

Through an agreement between the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the American Medical Association, physicians may convert Royal College MOC credits to AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. 

Bonus!

Upcoming participants will also receive a copy of the forthcoming handbook:

Requirements 

Please have basic experience in bedside ultrasound. We don’t want to teach you about depth and gain. We’re happy to fine tune your views but not to introduce you to the main cardiac views. It would just be wasting your clinical time. We’re here to show you how to assess pathology and integrate your findings into clinical decision-making. Take the basic group course to learn the views, or be self-taught from youtube/iphone and practicing on your patients. You don’t have to be great, but to get the most out of this experience it shouldn’t be your first time holding a probe.

Registration

email me at philipperola@gmail.com or reach out on twitter @ThinkingCC

Tuition (Updated 2022)

Montreal Mini-Fellowships: 600$ CAN / 500$ USD per day for 1 physician, 400$ CAN / 350$ USD per person per day for additional days, and 400$ CAN / 350$ USD per person per day for a 2-3 physician group (maximum)

Toronto Mini-Fellowships: 800$ per half day (4h).

100% refundable until you start. Even if you don’t show up. Really. We’re not in it for the business. We get to go home earlier if you don’t come.

Testimonials:

« I have had the chance to participate in a shadowing experience with Dr Rola at the Scarborough General Hospital ICU during two days in 2013. As a general internist and assistant program director, this experience really opened my eyes regarding the use of bedside ultrasound in general internal medicine and for IM residents. I think I would have benefited more of this experience if I had done more training previously, and I encourage future participants to do so. However, I came back from this experience with a very clear idea of the benefit of CUSE for my patients and for our residency training program. I really saw how ultrasound was used ‘in action’, in a much more realistic way than what is usually shown in CPD meetings. I also saw its limitations and the skills I needed to develop to generate good images (not something you can learn over the weekend!). Since then, I participated in formal trainings and licensing activities (more than 250 supervised US on acute care patients) and now practice bedside ultrasound autonomously. We now offer a bedside ultrasound training for our residents with the help of the emergency medicine department and an ultrasound-guided procedural simulation lab. Nothing in CPD has improved my practice and benefited the health of my patients as much as bedside ultrasound training. »

Alexandre Lafleur, MD, MSc (Ed.), FRCPC
Spécialiste en médecine interne
CHU de Québec – CHUL
alexandre.lafleur.1@ulaval.ca

“Thank you very much for the exposure and teaching offered via the CCUS “Mini-Fellowship.”  These few days allowed me to enormously improve my mastery of bedside ultrasound in clinical decision-making in critical care. I recommend the experience to clinicians already having experience in bedside ultrasound, but who feel they could benefit from the expertise of an instructor to attain a level beyond basic courses and available textbooks.”

Mathieu Brunet, MD, GP/ER/ICU, Magdalen Islands, Quebec, Canada

“The CCUS Mini Fellowship In House training is very essential in to experience the echo skills that we get from the courses,being supervised in ICU will offer the chance to be corrected and get real live practice/exposure by being at the bedside and learn what is priority in echo for the best of patient care. The in-house experience is very helpful, practical, I recommend this training to any physician involved in ER, ICU, CCU, Anesthesia and rapid response team.”

Joe Choufani, MD, Internal Medicine/Cardiology, St-Lawrence Health Association, NY

“Thanks for everything. I really appreciate you sharing your vast fund of knowledge with me.”

Sean Sue, MD, ER, Philadelphia

CME

So, great news, finally went thru the CME process and lo and behold, the Mini-Fellowships qualify for 25 Section 2 credits (regardless of the length) and 3 hours of Section 3 credits (per day of fellowship). For you americans:

Through an agreement between the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada and the American Medical Association, physicians may convert Royal College MOC credits to AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™., #CME