What AFAST®, TFAST® and Vet BLUE® – Global FAST® – can do for you?
FAST is an acronym for the abbreviated ultrasound examination called Focused Assessment with Sonography for Trauma created as a triage and post-interventional screening test by human trauma surgeons in the 1990s. It quickly morphed into a non-trauma (triage), and monitoring (tracking) point-of-care imaging tool. The FAST ” T3″ applications encompass the paradigm change of its applications to Trauma, Triage, and Tracking (monitoring) that we started in 2005. In other words, Global FAST®, the combined use of AFAST®, TFAST®, and Vet BLUE® as a single veterinary ultrasound examination, has become an extension of your physical exam and our new core skill.
AFAST® (abdominal FAST), TFAST® (thoracic FAST), Vet BLUE® (lung), and Global FAST® have been developed by FASTVet for veterinarians as a rapid, low impact, point-of-care first-line screening test to answer important clinical questions to help better:
- Pick your next best diagnostic test
- Better keep alive patients for gold-standard testing
- Better keep alive patients for gold-standard treatment
- Better serve as evidence-based information by “seeing” the abnormality
We at FASTVet are committed to training you in Global FAST® and understand it clinical implications!
Who Created FASTVet.com?
Dr. Gregory R. Lisciandro, DVM, Dipl. ABVP, Dipl. ACVECC attended the College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University, completed a rotating internship in small animal medicine and surgery at The Animal Medical Center, New York City, and his residency in Emergency and Critical Care at the Emergency Pet Center, San Antonio, Texas.
Dr. Lisciandro has spent approximately half of his 30-year career in general practice and half in emergency and critical care initially as an emergency veterinarian and then as a clinical specialist. All of the general practice and the first 3-years of emergency practice he was not using ultrasound.
“I took an introductory abdominal ultrasound course in 1999 and it was overwhelming. I never felt that ultrasound would ever become a core skill for me. However, the FAST exam seemed clinically helpful and the original study limited the application to 4 views. I thought “heck, I can learn 4 views!” and then the daunting epiphany of realizing what I missed every day without ultrasound!
Dr. Lisciandro’s interests include clinically integrating FAST and point-of-care ultrasound that rapidly answer important clinical questions to optimize small animal patient care. He developed and published on AFAST® with its target-organ approach and the AFAST®-applied fluid scoring system, TFAST® for pneumothorax, pleural and pericardial effusion, its echocardiography views, and use for assessing patient volume status, and most recently Vet BLUE®, the first proactive, regional, pattern-based lung ultrasound examination plus its B-line scoring system and visual lung language.
Dr. Lisciandro has been an annual guest lecturer at the TRISAT Critical Care Webcast Series to medical doctors and Level I Trauma Centers throughout the state of Texas and done collaborative research with veterinary schools and medical doctors. Currently, there are over 18 clinically related studies that he has been a part of supporting the Global FAST® Approach in our peer-review literature (https://fastvet.com/publications-references-validating-fastvet-techniques/). He is editor and chapter author of the textbook Focused Ultrasound Techniques for the Small Animal Practitioner, Wiley ©2014, translated in 6 languages, including English, Spanish, Greek, Japanese, Chinese, and Polish which is now in its 2nd edition, Wiley ©2021. He has lectured and trained veterinarians throughout the USA, Canada, Mexico, Europe, South America, and the Middle East including 12 foreign countries, and as President of the International Veterinary Point-of-Care Ultrasound Society (IVPOCUS, IVPOCUS.org), leading veterinary medicine in this exciting new frontier.
Dr. Stephanie Lisciandro, DVM, Dipl. ACVIM (Small Animal Internal Medicine) attended the College of Veterinary Medicine at Texas A&M University, completed a rotating internship in small animal medicine and surgery at The Animal Medical Center, New York City, and then spent a year in general practice in Roswell, Georgia before performing residency training in internal medicine at The Animal Medical Center, New York City. Stephanie’s interests have included cardiology and gastroenterology and she has spent time as an internist in specialty practices, mobile ultrasound and specialty consulting, and telemedicine. Currently, Dr. Lisciandro is Director of Internal Medicine for Oncura Partners, Inc., Fort Worth, Texas.
“I have been doing complete diagnostic abdominal ultrasound, complete detailed echocardiography, and ultrasound-guided procedures ever since my residency training over 25 years ago. However, when Greg began learning FAST, I was reluctant to embrace this new FAST ultrasound frontier. It took me no time to see its (Global FAST®) importance in my daily practice, helping better assure that my ultrasound exams were ordered for the correct cavity, and to make sure restraint was safe for my patient. Furthermore, I realized how incredibly impactful Vet BLUE® was for detecting pathology that was questionable or occult radiographically. I trained my referral hospitals to do Global FAST® and I became exponentially busier. It’s truly a game-changer for improving small animal patient care.”