POCUS Tips — Bedside Point-of-Care Ultrasound Reference

How to get each cardiac, lung and IVC view, what normal and abnormal look like, common pitfalls, and what each finding changes about management.

Before You Scan (SETUP) — Sixty seconds of setup buys you a diagnostic image. Probe, preset, depth, gain — in that order, every time.

Parasternal Long Axis (PLAX) — The default first look at the heart: global LV function, the mitral and aortic valves, and the pericardium in one plane.

Parasternal Short Axis (PSAX) — Regional wall motion and the right heart’s pressure story — this is where a flattened septum gives away RV overload.

Apical Four-Chamber (A4C) — The only view that puts all four chambers side by side — the place to size the right heart and measure TAPSE.

Subcostal Four-Chamber (SUBC) — The rescue window: best single view for pericardial fluid, and the view that still works in arrest and trauma.

Normal Lung — A-Profile (A-LINE) — Learn the baseline first: sliding pleura plus A-lines means air where air belongs, and it is what every pathology is compared to.

B-Lines and the Wet Lung (B-LINE) — Separate cardiogenic edema from focal disease by pattern, symmetry and what the pleural line looks like.

Pneumothorax (PTX) — A fast, high-yield rule-out at the bedside — air rises, so in a supine patient the anterior chest is where to look.

Effusion and Consolidation (PLAPS) — Free fluid above the diaphragm and the shapes consolidated lung takes — the posterolateral base is where both hide.

IVC and Filling Pressure (IVC) — A gauge of right atrial pressure — useful at the extremes, easy to over-read, and never a fluid-responsiveness test on its own.

Abdominal Aorta (AORTA) — Rule an abdominal aortic aneurysm in or out at the bedside: the whole aorta from diaphragm to bifurcation, measured outer wall to outer wall.

Extended FAST (eFAST) — Free fluid in the abdomen, pericardium and pleural spaces after trauma — a yes/no exam in under three minutes that decides who needs the operating room before the CT scanner.

RUSH — Undifferentiated Shock (RUSH) — A structured sweep for hypotension of unknown cause: the pump, the tank and the pipes, each finding mapped to hypovolemic, cardiogenic, obstructive or distributive shock.

Schematic · loop pending

Where to put it anterior view

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Pneumothorax

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So what — what the finding changes

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POCUS Tips — Bedside Point-of-Care Ultrasound Reference

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What you are looking at

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So what — what the finding changes