About

Dr. Juana Nicoll Capizzano is a board-certified physician in both Family Medicine and Geriatric Medicine with nearly a decade of clinical and academic leadership. She earned her MD at Ricardo Palma University in Lima, Peru, completed her Family Medicine residency at the University of Iowa, and pursued a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine. In 2021, she further specialized with an Advanced Emergency Medicine Ultrasonography Fellowship at Michigan Medicine.

A national leader in point-of-care ultrasound (POCUS) in primary care, Dr. Capizzano has been instrumental in advancing its integration into clinical and academic settings. She developed the core POCUS curriculum for the University of Michigan’s Family Medicine residency program and later expanded it into a dedicated ultrasound track. She also led the creation and implementation of a POCUS privileges pathway within her department, formalized in May 2022, allowing credentialed faculty and residents to perform POCUS independently.

In 2022, Dr. Capizzano founded and now directs the Advanced Primary Care Ultrasound Fellowship, further advancing POCUS training for primary care clinicians. Her operational leadership includes collaborating with billing and informatics teams to streamline ultrasound documentation, ordering, and image integration into the electronic medical record (EMR). In July 2022, she launched a dedicated Family Medicine POCUS Clinic, providing non-emergent diagnostic imaging for primary care patients. In this clinic, Dr. Capizzano is deeply involved in teaching ultrasound image acquisition, interpretation, clinical integration, billing, and documentation.

She is a passionate educator and core faculty member of the STFM Family Medicine POCUS Educator’s Certificate Program, as well as a member of the national POCUS Family Medicine Task Force. She has trained numerous faculty members and continues to teach POCUS to students, residents, and fellows. Dr. Capizzano is a frequently invited speaker at national conferences and has published extensively in the field of ultrasound, medicine, and chronic disease management. She has received multiple accolades, including the Best Medical Educator Award from the Michigan Academy of Family Physicians.

POCUS teaching experience:

• Locally at UM with medical students,  residents, fellows and faculty on training
• Statewide Workshops
• AAFP workshops and FMX
• AIUM workshops
• STFM POCUS Certificate Program
  • Multiple hands on workshops and virtual teaching

POCUS Publications:

Capizzano JN, Tucker R:  Point of Care Ultrasound for the diagnosis of skull fractures in children:  Report of two cases, Journal of Ultrasound in Medicine, Supplement 1, S147-8, 2021.

Capizzano JN, O’Dwyer MC, Furst W, Plegue M, Tucker R, Theyyunni N, Harper DM: Current State of Point- of Care Ultrasound use within Family Medicine.  J Am Board Fam Med 35(4)809-813, 2022.  DOI: https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2022.04.220019.  PMID:  35896460

Johri AM, Glass C, Hill B, Jensen T, Puentes W, Olusanya O, Capizzano JN, Dance R, Reierson K, Reisinger N, Liblik K, Galen BT:  The evolution of Cardiovascular Ultrasound:  A review of Cardiac Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) Across Specialties.  Am J Med 136(7):621-628, 2023.  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amjmed.2023.02.020  PMID:  36889497

Point of Care Ultrasound Track at One Year in an Academic Family Medicine Department BenjaminBeduhn, MD 1, 2; Sebastian Schoneich, MD1; William Saunders, MD,3 MBA1; Scott Kelley, MD1; Marie Claire O’Dwyer, MB, BCh, BAO, M.P.H1; Ryan Tucker, MD4; Juana Nicoll Capizzano, MD1   PRiMER 2024:8:41 published 8/6/2024 Point-of-Care Ultrasound Track in an Academic Family Medicine Department

eXplainMR: Generating Real-time Textual and Visual eXplanations to Facilitate UltraSonography Learning in MR. Jingying Wang, Juana Nicoll Capizzano MD, Matthew Sigakis, Xu Wang, Vitaly Popov. Published 25 April 2025. ACM digital library.open access. https://doi.org/10.1145/3706598.3714015

Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Screening. Sebastian Schoneich MD, Juana Nicoll Capizzano MD,   Mayeaux’s Essential Guide to Primary Care Procedures. Edition 3. July 2025

Articles: Capizzano JN:  How I Brought Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) to My Family Medicine Department., American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, 2022. How I Brought Point-of-Care Ultrasound (POCUS) to My Family Medicine Department | The Scan (aiumthescan.blog)