Ultrasound for Veterinary Nurses

Ultrasound for Veterinary Nurses

A practical one-day course for veterinary nurses to gain hands-on experience with ultrasound. Learn how to use machine controls, perform AFAST, TFAST and POCUS, and recognise key abnormalities to support patient triage and monitoring in practice.

As a Veterinary Nurse, you are often the first to handle patients in critical situations. Being able to use ultrasound at the point of care allows you to support clinicians in triage, monitoring, and decision-making. Focused ultrasound is a quick, safe, and non-invasive tool that can give immediate answers in emergencies, and learning these skills will expand your role and confidence in practice.

This course will provide you with a practical, hands-on day of scanning, with short introductory talks followed by supervised training on ultrasound. You will learn how and when to use ultrasound in practice, how to set up and handle the ultrasound machine, and how to carry out structured scans (AFAST, TFAST, and POCUS). By the end of the day, you will be able to confidently acquire and interpret basic images, recognise obvious abnormalities, and document your findings to support the veterinary surgeon.

What you’ll learn:

• When and how ultrasonography can be used by veterinary nurses in everyday practice
• How to use basic machine controls and probe orientation effectively
• How to perform AFAST and TFAST scans step-by-step
• How to recognise normal vs abnormal findings in the abdomen and thorax
• How to detect free abdominal fluid, pleural effusion, pericardial effusion and pneumothorax at the point of care
• How to document findings and escalate appropriately within the clinical team

Course Tutor:David Casado Bregon DVM DipECVDI MSc CertAVP MRCVS

This course is kindly sponsored by Imotek