The use of an emergency physician-directed bedside ultrasound examination to clarify a diagnosis in an 8-year-old boy with chronic abdominal pain.

Abdominal pain is a common presenting complaint to the emergency department. Often, patients with chronic, intermittent histories of abdominal pain with multiple visits to medical providers find it difficult to be taken seriously. We describe a patient with a history of episodic abdominal pain who was found to have intermittent ureteropelvic junction obstruction after a timely ultrasound examination by the treating emergency physician.