Dr. Meredith Hill-Ciesielski is a board certified Emergency Medicine Physician. She currently works for UW Health as well as rural Emergency Departments and hospitals in the Illinois area.

Q: Tell us a little bit about your work and how POCUS relates.

I am a board certified Emergency Medicine Physician. For the majority of my career, I worked in trauma centers and large volume Emergency Departments. In the past year, I made a big shift in my career to work in small rural EDs and hospitals. Most of them are single coverage where I am the only physician for the whole hospital for the majority of the day/night. I have found the work really fulfilling and my POCUS skills have been put to the test.

I may not have the luxury of an ultrasound tech on site. So I have needed my skills to stabilize trauma patients quickly and expedite their stable transport to a trauma center. I have been able to diagnose ruptured ectopic pregnancy quickly and expedite the patient’s transfer to a facility with OB to manage. When a patient is unstable or coding, POCUS can help identify a possible source or rule out etiologies quickly. A quick assessment of the IVC in a hypotensive septic patient can help me understand if providing more IV fluids is going to be helpful or not. This can help me optimize the patient for transport and ensure they arrive in stable condition at their accepting hospital. Using ultrasound for procedures can help expedite the procedure and make it safer for the patient. When you are the only physician in the department, you have to complete your procedures quickly.  It is crucial to the turnover of the department.

I have been inspired to branch out my skill set and ultrasound knowledge to see how else I can use the technology to help my patients and my practice within this rural setting. Recently, I started teaching again at the medical school near me helping out with their ultrasound course. Having the POCUS certification has been a helpful review so that I am providing quality education to the next generation of physicians.

Q: Why did you pursue POCUS certification and how did you find the process to be?

After I completed my Emergency Medicine Residency, I decided to complete an Emergency Medicine Ultrasound Fellowship. At the time, there wasn’t a certifying exam for this fellowship so I completed the SPI portion of the ARDMS exam but stopped short of completing any specialty certification because they didn’t seem to apply to my particular use in Emergency Medicine.

When I found the POCUS certification, I was happy to find a certification which applied directly to my speciality. Not only does it allow me to highlight my skill set, but it also provides continuing education. I found the process to be straightforward and the images and questions to be educational and high quality.  I am currently working on my maintenance certification and finding it to be really enjoyable.

Q: Share a positive message or quote with the community:

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”

― Aesop

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