ACTIONCARDS - One-page instructions framing POCUS use for family medicine physicians

Point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) is widely used in many clinical specialties including family medicine [1]. The potential use in family medicine includes a great variety of clinical situations and related scanning modalities [2] [3]. However, for many scanning projections the frequency with which the scan is performed is low [4] [5] [6] making it difficult to develop routine and maintain scanning competence. Furthermore, the low pre-test probability of disease and less severe cases seen in patients in primary care may challenge the ability to recognize pathology on images. In addition, the working conditions in office-based family medicine leave little room for practice due to the timeframe of the consultation [7] and the lack of opportunities for collegial back-and-forth discussion and proctored scans.