VanPOCUS - High Quality Ultrasound Education
VanPOCUS is a group of Vancouver-based ultrasound experts who are dedicated to providing high quality point of care ultrasound education at all levels of training and practice. From full year fellowships to single day conferences, VanPOCUS provides learning opportunities across a range of specialties and disciplines.
News - June 30, 2026
The fellowship celebrated the graduation of our 3 fellows for the past year. Palig Balian will continue to work with the St. Paul’s Hospital emergency group, Geoff Ching will be working at the Burnaby Hospital and Langley Memorial Hospital emergency departments, and Sam Rao will be moving back to Toronto to join the Sunnybrook Hospital emergency group. We wish all our fellows the best for the future!
News - June 1, 2026
Our former fellow Maryse Fagnant managed the most recent POCUS literature primer series on first-trimester pregnancy POCUS and scrotal POCUS. The expert panel identified the top 5 most influential papers for both of these POCUS modalities. You can find this paper in the June issue of the Canadian Journal of Emergency Medicine.
News - February 4, 2026
The fellowship had a great winter retreat in Whistler. Sampreeth Rao and Palig Balian had the chance to try out some of the green runs on the ski hill, and Geoff Ching spent the afternoon at the spa. There was good discussion on career counselling, wellness in medicine, and financial literacy at apres and dinner.
News - January 23, 2026
Congratulations to Sampreeth Rao, one of our current POCUS fellows, on his first POCUS publication! Point-of-care ultrasound in the modern era of emergency medicine was just published in the journal Current Opinion in Critical Care, and it offers a narrative review of the POCUS literature from the past 18 months.
News - September 20, 2025
Our former fellow Rukaiyah Lakkadghatwala came back to BC to give an excellent talk on POCUS for ocular emergencies at the St. Paul’s Emergency Medicine Update conference in Whistler.
News - July 22, 2025
Big congratulations to our former fellows Rukaiyah Lakkadghatwala and Alex Wilson for getting their fellowship research project across the line and published in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine! They did a systematic review and meta-analysis of ultrasound guidance compared to anatomical landmark technique for thoracentesis and found that ultrasound guidance trended towards increased success rates and lower complication rates. Their paper is freely accessible as an open access publication.
News - July 3, 2025
VanPOCUS has a new publication in CJEM on using POCUS in pediatric resuscitation. This Just the Facts piece answers focused questions on how to integrate POCUS into your management of the critically ill child. It’s accompanied by an elegant infographic. If you see kids in the emergency department, make sure you read this paper.