Point-Of-Care Cardiac Ultrasound: is it time for anesthesiologists to embrace and achieve competence?

The statement above refers to the introduction of the stethoscope in clinical practice at the beginning of the 19th century. It shows that every new technology needs to overcome barriers before its acceptance. Point-Of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) is a diagnostic modality adopted by several specialties to help in the clinical evaluation of the patient and the performance of several procedures. It has been familiar in anesthesiology for a long time due to its role in facilitating venous accesses and regional blocks. Given the inherent safety, portability, and relative costeffectiveness of POCUS compared to other imaging modalities, it is unsurprising that this diagnostic tool is increasingly getting attention in modern medical practice. The advent of compact and versatile devices with enhanced image quality and sophisticated features — such as color, pulsed, and continuous wave Doppler— has further advanced this trend. For the anesthesiologist, it is crucial to comprehend the wide range of POCUS applications, covering cardiac, pulmonary, gastric, abdominal, neurological, and airway assessments. Such understanding facilitates the selection of the appropriate modality, thereby optimizing patient management and outcomes in the clinical scenario at hand. Cardiac Point-Of-Care Ultrasound (CPOCUS) has the general characteristics of other POCUS modalities (qualitative assessment, simple execution) with the main objective of helping the diagnosis and assisting in situations of hemodynamic instability. Based on a defined list of diagnoses, CPOCUS can reliably detect or exclude the presence of cardiac tamponade, myocardial ischemia, ventricular failure, hypovolemia, gross valvular pathologies, pulmonary embolism, and unexplained hypoxia. It can also be used in cases of circulatory arrest to evaluate and guide cardiopulmonary resuscitation. It is essential to emphasize the enormous