Spinal anaesthesia is one of the commonest procedures performed, and one of the first skills to be acquired by an anaesthesiologist.  It requires considerable skill, and demands a precise and total understanding of regional anatomic relationships.  Acquiring adequate knowledge of the anatomy and orientation of central neuraxis, for performance of a successful block, is still largely based on the “blind” landmark based procedure.  Radiological examination and simulation based training techniques have been employed successfully, to better aid the teaching process.

In recent times, Ultrasonography has shed light in various aspects in clinical anaesthesia, and has proven to be a useful tool for point of care procedures.  Pertaining to central neuraxial blockade, USG guided procedures have been proven to identify and navigate the difficult anatomy, but because the procedure is time taking and there pose some difficulty in obtaining clear images, it is not routinely used in clinical practise.  However in a setting where practise makes perfect, to include its application as a teaching tool for the normal anatomy, may prove to improve the technique of lumbar puncture for spinal anaesthesia in normal as well as difficult anatomy, thereby reducing the distress experienced by the patient with multiple attempts at spinal anaesthesia, also reducing incidence of associated complications (e.g hematoma, post dural puncture headache) .  This study is designed to evaluate if a preprocedural ultrasonographic examination of the lumbar spine, improves the performance of lumbar puncture for spinal anaesthesia.