Historical Background

Many of us did not have a clue about the number of colleagues working all over the world and the amount of work on Point of Care Ultrasound that is being developed in several countries. After the first world congress, held in Milan in 2005, we started planning the structure of an international critical ultrasound society to serve healthcare professionals managing critical patients or working in critical scenarios, such as scarce-resource areas, military environments and the prehospital arena. Since our first congress in Milan, subsequent Winfocus congresses [New York (2006) and Paris (2007)] have been supported by several sponsors, During these congresses, the profile of critical ultrasound as it its understood today was delineated, and the need of annual editions of the World Congress on Ultrasound in Emergency and Critical Care Medicine became obvious.

With the support and consensus of several international societies on Emergency, Critical Care Medicine and Ultrasound, Winfocus became the society centralizing research and education on critical ultrasound. Also, Winfocus became a partner of the United Nations as the provider of education in critical ultrasound in the Millennium Goals project, taking ultrasound further into the developing world.

Due to this development of utilizing Point of Care Ultrasound towards improving the basic healthcare in developing countries beyond the critical patient, Brazil was chosen as the first country in the developing world to hold our World Congress. Brazil is a center of development of medical knowledge for Latin America, and at the same time, is a country with a tremendous need for improvement in basic healthcare.

This is a unique opportunity for scientific and technological development. We are confident that this conference will greatly contribute to the field of emergency and critical care medicine in Brazil. In addition, this conference will certainly be instrumental in the development of a new diagnostic tool that is economically effective in primary health care settings, especially in geographically remote areas.