Prof. Daniel Lichtenstein is a medical intensivist and visiting Professor, who has worked at the medical ICU, University Hospital Ambroise-Paré in Paris, since 1989. This ICU, previously chaired by Prof. François Jardin, is believed to be the first ICU that had ultrasound onsite for cardiac purposes.In 1991 Prof. Lichtenstein defined critical ultrasound, including lung ultrasound, as a whole body approach to the critically ill with immediate therapeutic applications.

1. What are your key areas of interest and research?
Development of critical whole body ultrasound -  since 1989.

2. What are the major challenges in your field?
  • To demonstrate that the inclusion of the lung is able to change the very definition of critical ultrasound.
  • To show that simple machines can produce work as good as sophisticated ones.

3. What is your top management tip?
To be able, each time it is possible, to manage a patient without having to use ultrasound; just to keep on being a doctor. However, if clinical data are not sufficient, using, for instance, the BLUE-protocol for managing an acute respiratory failure.

4. What would you single out as a career highlight?
Each of the few times my manuscripts were accepted. This allowed me to submit the following ones.

5. If you had not chosen this career path you would have become a...?
 An intensivist just working on another part of this huge profession.

6. What are your personal interests outside of work?
Apart from staying with my family? Playing and writing music (piano bar, movies music).

7. Your favourite quote?
"One apple a day keeps the doctor away"...(popular quote) "provided you aim well on the target" (added from W. Churchill). The best searchers in the world must bear in mind that, regardless of the contribution they bring, the best is no disease at all...

Prof. Lichtenstein is author of the textbook Whole body ultrasonography in the critically ill (Springer, 2010) and General ultrasound in the critically ill(Springer, 2005). The latest edition of his textbookLung ultrasound in the critically ill was published by Springer in 2016. It includes the following protocols: acute respiratory failure (BLUE-protocol); circulatory failure (FALLS-protocol); cardiac arrest (SESAME-protocol) and procedures (thoracentesis, subclavian venous line insertions etc.)

Prof. Lichtenstein has published many original articles on critical, venous and lung ultrasound). At the Cercle des Echographistes d'Urgence et de Réanimation Francophones (CEURF) training centre he offers personalised training at the bedside in emergency and intensive care ultrasound for intensivists, anesthesiologists, emergency physicians, and other physicians interested in critical ultrasound.

Holistic Ultrasound in the ICU
Hansonecho have published a video series on Prof. Lichtenstein's approach to ultrasound in the ICU, including what he looks for in an ultrasound machine:


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Daniel Lichtenstein, Zoom On, ICU, critical care, Ultrasound, US, Ultrasonography Zoom On Profile of Daniel Lichtenstein, Critical Ultrasound Pioneer