Dr. John McNaught is the founder and medical director of Fertility Ontario. He runs a cutting-edge practice for minimally invasive gynecology with a team of specialists. Their minimally invasive gynecology practice relies heavily on ultrasound based techniques, which have helped them develop non-surgical alternatives to hysterectomy. 

We recently interviewed Dr. McNaught at his practice to talk about alternatives to traditional gynecology in an office setting, and his minimally invasive approach to gynecology.

Doctors have been putting needles into patients for years to aspirate fluid for cellular analysis via fine needle aspiration (FNA); to withdraw a tissue sample for histology for injections, and to place intravenous catheters.  Until recently, the vast majority of these procedures were done by using anatomical landmarks to guide placement of the needle. Now that ultrasound systems are more affordable and easier to use, ultrasound guidance is being used more frequently for needle procedures.  Ultrasound-guided procedures offer the following advantages:   

Doctors from Vancouver General Hospital got to try the SonixGPS needle guidance ultrasound system for the first time at an Edusonix Workshop in June.  The groundbreaking technology allows clinicians to clearly predict the needle’s trajectory during invasive procedures such as performing nerve blocks for anesthesia.  Watch the video below to see doctors explain how the SonixGPS increases their confidence in knowing their needle trajectory is on the correct path.

Dr. John McNaught sat down with us to discuss how he uses ultrasound to improve patient care at the Fertility Ontario clinic.  By using modern and affordable ultrasound technology customized for OB/GYN application right in the clinic, Dr. McNaught notes that he is able to make his patients feel better, faster.  He also uses the ultrasound to discover a tremendous amount of pathology and to target treatment.

Seattle Reproductive Medicine is the first clinic to begin using the SonixTouch system combined with ARTworks® Clinical, an Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software for the fertility industry.  All four of its locations are now enjoying the integration of two of the industry’s most popular technologies.  “We recently connected our ARTworks system with the Ultrasonix machines and the integration is seamless,” said Brad Senstra, Executive Director of Seattle Reproductive Medicine.  “The ability to take patient measurements and have the data transfer automatically to our EMR saves time and reduces errors.”

We sat down for a brief chat with Dr. Fiorello, Ultrasound Director of the University Medical Center in Tuscon, Arizona.  Dr. Fiorrello runs the ultrasound program at the Center, which has a large emergency medicine residence program and a combined emergency medicine pediatrics program.  In the video he explains the benefits of moving from a system based on paper and thermal images, to easy to use ultrasound machines integrated with a centralized software platform.