[Roles and challenges of Point-of-Care Ultrasonography in internal medicine].

Point-of-Care Ultrasonography (POCUS) is an emerging important diagnostic tool in internal medicine wards. The concept is to focus on specific or binary questions to rule in disease and has a proven additional benefit for procedural guidance in terms of patients' safety. Its advantages lie in its rapid and non-invasive use at the patient's bedside. It does not replace the traditional diagnostic procedures or specialists' investigations. Since medical decisions can be guided by ultrasounds results, it's important to remember that the diagnostic performance is largely operator dependent. Implementation of POCUS in internal medicine wards is still challenging regarding the small number of ultrasound experts to provide education programs and the lack of well-established learning objectives and training programs.