I’ve done this topic before, but I left some meat on that bone. Let’s get into the weeds.

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.