There are some mistakes that learners commonly make as they are getting the hang of lower extremity DVT ultrasound. Here are some that I see them make when imaging the femoral vein:

• Mistaking the greater saphenous vein for the femoral vein
• Having the probe too distally and not seeing the point where the saphenous joins the common femoral vein
• Finding an image of the femoral vein and thinking it is the common femoral vein
• Not recognizing that they did not actually see the deep femoral vein
• Checking boxes in the “Views Obtained” section of their Qpath worksheet of images they did not actually obtain. Sometimes this is clerical; other times this represents a knowledge gap.