Future directions and conclusions.

The current practice of critical care ultrasound worldwide and the potential that ultrasound holds for critical care patients is exciting and more advanced than many in the field would have suspected. This supplement has described a wide breadth of critical care ultrasound application that is unlikely to all be practiced by just one physician anywhere in the world. The urgency of incorporating ultrasound into critical care practice is almost palpable after reading the chapters making up this supplement, and the proposed curriculum will provide intensivists with a detailed roadmap for training. The future of critical care ultrasound will include development of protocols that cannot be derived from current traditional imaging practices and much research is still ahead of us.