TTUHSC to Host World Congress on Ultrasound in Medical Education

• By Suzanna Cisneros
• September 7, 2016

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) will host the Fourth World Congress on Ultrasound in Medical Education Sept. 23 – 25 in Lubbock. A ribbon cutting ceremony will take place at 8 a.m. Sept. 23 at the Texas Tech University Student Union Building, 15^th and Akron Ave. TTUHSC President Tedd L. Mitchell, M.D., Texas Tech University System Chancellor Robert Duncan, Lubbock Mayor Dan Pope, President of the Society of Ultrasound In Medical Education Jeanette Mladenovic, M.D., and representatives from the Lubbock Chamber of Commerce will take part in the ceremony.

 

The World Congress conference will feature researchers, physicians and other experts in the field of ultrasound. Ultrasound is a high frequency sound, too high for humans to hear. Medical ultrasound or ultrasonography use these high frequency sound waves to create images of organs and structures inside the body. The names of procedures and ultrasound images change according to the specific area of the body focused on.

 

Jongyeol Kim, M.D., World Congress organizer, said physicians and health care professionals use the medial ultrasonography to view anatomy or normal structure and various diseases in many different organs, measure speed of blood flow in heart and blood vessels, and evaluate movements of heart valves or organs in our body. 

 

“Several medical schools including Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center started teaching ultrasound to medical students as regular curriculum,” Kim said. “During anatomy class, the first year medical students are scanning standardized patients or model to see organs after cadaver dissection. Seeing organs and blood flow running in live human body with nonintrusive ultrasound augments students’ learning experience when they learn anatomy, physiology and physical examination skills.”

 

Kim said ultrasonography was widely used in radiology, cardiology, and obstetrics and gynecology over the past several decades, but clinicians from other specialties had not used them frequently until recently when more compact and affordable ultrasound machines were developed.

 

“With further advancement of technology, the ultrasound machines become more compact, portable, and less expensive with higher imaging quality,” Kim said. “The availability of portable ultrasound devices enables physicians of other specialties such as emergency medicine, critical care and internal medicine to embrace point-of-care ultrasonography — ultrasonography performed and interpreted by the clinician at the bedside.”

 

For more information about the Fourth World Congress on Ultrasound in Medical Education, email wcume2016@ttuhsc.edu or visit www.wcume.org.