May the POCUS Be With You! A Call to Radiologists and Sonographers. A Narrative Review

Clinicians across many specialties now perform point-of-care ultrasonography (POCUS) as a question-driven bedside examination. Emergency physicians, intensivists, cardiologists (focused cardiac ultrasound), anaesthetists, respiratory physicians, gastroenterologists and gynaecologists all perform bedside scans. A comprehensive, protocol-driven study with a multi-organ survey, Doppler interrogation and structured report remains the work of radiologists and sonographers. Confusion at this interface breeds friction among professionals.

This narrative review synthesises the POCUS literature with position statements from the ASUM, ACEM, ACEP, ASE, SRU/ACR, ANZCA, CICM, RANZCOG, RACS, RANZCR, EFSUMB, EuSEM and WFUMB. Three axes define POCUS: setting, completeness and operator credentials. POCUS is a spectrum. Depending on the operator's skill, qualification and available time, a clinician scan can answer a focused question in seconds or approach a comprehensive examination. We compared the Australasian and United States regulatory environments, where United States reimbursement drives stronger governance, and addressed quality assurance, false-positive and false-negative risk, image archiving, the sonographer-clinician relationship and POCUS practice across the specialties that scan at the bedside.

POCUS and comprehensive departmental ultrasound complement each other. Clinician-performed ultrasonography has become a genuine multispecialty movement. The overdue step is to invite radiologists and sonographers, the workforce that anchors comprehensive ultrasound, into this movement. Now is the time for interdisciplinary teaching and knowledge sharing: shared image archives, joint credentialing, combined audits, reciprocal teaching, joint research and shared simulations across every specialty that performs bedside scans.