POCUS in Acute Medicine

In this edition of Acute Medicine, Knight et al. demonstrate from SAMBA data that access to ultrasound machines and supervision is geographically heterogeneous.1 They raise concerns that this may lead to inequity of provision of Point of Care Ultrasound (POCUS) and the benefits it can provide for patients. This point is well made: Since the development of the Focused Acute Medicine Ultrasound (FAMUS) competencies in 20162 there has been a steady increase in the provision of supervisors to 803 and the number of individuals completing training has increased to 56. Whilst this is to be applauded, our experience concurs with this paper that much of the ultrasound training is concentrated in pockets of expertise in particular hospitals. As part of the AIM curriculum rewrite for 2022, the Special Advisory Group has proposed to the GMC that POCUS competencies become mandatory for all trainees in AIM. This will be supported by half a day of clinical time for training. This is a laudable aim but it is questionable whether, given the number of supervisors and their idiosyncratic distribution, the specialty of Acute Medicine would be able to support accreditation for all trainees. It is esti