“I think the sense I’ve been getting,” Greg Schmidt, MD, said, “is one of immense relief to be back.” Schmidt, the director of the Midwest Fellows Critical Care Ultrasound Symposium, was discussing the mood of the attendees at the eighth gathering of faculty and fellows and the fifth time that the University of Iowa has hosted.

Because of the pandemic, last year’s symposium had been cancelled. Two institutions, which normally send a complement of faculty and first-year critical care fellows to participate, were still under travel restrictions and could not attend this year either. Even with those missing schools, attendance swelled this year from about 60 fellows in 2019 to close to 80. Schmidt noted that one reason for the increase was that some second-year fellows who would have come last year were also enrolled.