Ultrasound probe grip: the afternoon tea technique

Globally, ultrasound is being used to assist in central venous and difficult peripheral intravenous access in a variety of emergency and non-emergency clinical settings.

After reading Flood's paper on safe central venous access and noting the difficulties clinicians find in probe stabilisation whilst performing dynamic intravenous access, we decided to share our teaching technique.

The purpose of this correspondence is to highlight the 'afternoon tea technique' as a potential teaching method for probe stabilisation.

It is hoped that this technique will improve the image quality in dynamic procedures and increase the success rate of ultrasound-guided intravenous access in clinical practice.