Ultrasound Fellowship

EM Ultrasound Director		Robert Rifenburg, DO, FACEP
2012-2013 Fellow		Nicole White, MD
Past Fellows	Davin Pinto, MD, Connie Swickhamer, MD Christopher Dorgan, MD MacLong Tran, MD

Fellowship Goal

To produce experts and leaders in the field of emergency medicine ultrasonography (EUS) who can ultimately develop and maintain an emergency department division of ultrasound and/or emergency medicine ultrasound fellowship. This entails a mastery of three separate, but overlapping skills:

1. The fellow will need to develop the psychomotor skills of a technician in ultrasound machine operation and image acquisition.
2. He/she will need the expertise of an imaging specialist in image interpretation.
3. The emergency sinologist will need to integrate information derived from Ultrasonography with theoretical, scientific, cognitive, and clinical concepts in real-time management of the patient.

The successful fellow will successfully complete the requirements for obtaining American Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer (ARDMS) certification.

Fellow Responsibilities/Requirements for Graduation

The fellow is expected to master five basic areas of emergency Ultrasonography:

1. Clinical Expertise - a minimum of 800 emergency ultrasound examinations must be performed by the fellow in the ED within the one-year fellowship. Teaching will be performed by the ultrasound director as well as other attending EP's who are fully credentialed in EUS.
2. Quality Assurance - review of other's ultrasound examination or observing actual ultrasound examinations are to be performed on a weekly basis with the Emergency Ultrasound Director in addition to the required 800 EUS exams.
3. Imaging Modalities - the fellow will be trained in the six "primary" EUS applications (heart, gallbladder, kidneys, aorta, 1st trimester endovaginal, FAST) as well as numerous "secondary" applications (DVT, vascular access, cardiac arrest, thoracentesis, paracentesis, pericardiocentesis, ocular, musculoskeletal, abscess drainage, foreign body removal and testicular).
4. Cognitive Skills - a number of ultrasound text books and other various video tools will be available to the fellow for educational purposes.
5. Scientific/Research Endeavors - a minimum of one research project is to be designed and submitted to the IRB at Resurrection Medical Center as well as submission of a minimum of one abstract with the fellow's name as first author and presenter to a national meeting such as ACEP, SAEM or AIUM.
6. Educational Activity - the fellow will be required to present a minimum of three lectures to the RMC Emergency Medicine Residents and Faculty. It is also expected that the fellow will present ultrasound teaching courses through the Illinois College of Emergency Physicians (ICEP) as well as other community settings.
7. Administrative Expertise - the fellow must be involved with a minimum of one interdepartmental quality assurance work/project (i.e. credentialing status of emergency sonologists in the institution, proportion of faculty who are fully/partially trained in EUS, or the status of EUS in relation to other departments, the medical staff, and the hospital administration.
8. Clinical Responsibilities - the fellow is required to work 1,040 hours during the fellowship year as an emergency medicine attending physician in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Resurrection Medical Center. The fellow is also required to work 50 hrs/month of hands-on teaching of residents and or other faculty in bedside EUS.
9. Professional Membership - the fellow is required to join on EUS committee (ACEP, SAEM or AIUM).

Fellowship Objectives

• Develop expertise clinical EUS
• Experience of all modalities of ultrasound
  • Vascular
  • Cardiac
  • EV
  • GB
  • Renal
  • Aorta
• Comfortable with further applications
  • Ocular
  • MSK
  • Pulmonary
  • Male GU
• Experience with ultrasound guided technique
  • Vascular Access, Nerve Blocks, Abscess I & D
• Overview
  • Tape Review
• Educational opportunities
  • Rotation
  • Quarterly ultrasound workshop
  • PPT's
• Administration & Residency
  • QA & Rosen's Project
• Responsibilities
  • Ultrasound 45-50 hours
  • Clinical 80 hours
  • Tape Review once a week
• Meet minimum ultrasound scans for RDMS certification

For more information on our EM Ultrasound Fellowship, please contact:

Robert P. Rifenburg, DO, FACEP, RDMS
Fellowship Director, Emergency Ultrasound
773-594-7871