![]() The downside of a certificate is that you usually won’t earn college credit unless your program has an agreement with a local college or university. (Indeed, many are designed with these students in mind.) Sonography certificate programs can also be ideal for professionals who hold a degree in another allied health field. The big advantage of a certificate is that it gets you working quickly and with fewer expenses. Community colleges, career schools, technical colleges, and hospitals all host accredited certificate programs. It’s therefore important to choose an educational pathway that will allow you to sit for the certification exam - preferably right after graduation.īeginning in 2018, the quickest way to become certified will be to complete a certificate program in diagnostic medical sonography accredited by the Commission on Accreditation of Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). Many employers require that sonographers be certified, and some states require certification as a condition of licensure. In addition to classroom time, most accredited schools require and provide over 1,000 hours of on-site, hands-on clinical training, where students work side by side with qualified sonographers and doctors to learn the equipment, techniques, and necessary protocols to perform ultrasound examinations. Sonography programs include classes in related health topics such as anatomy and physiology, ultrasound physics, and clinical training in the interpretation of sonographic images. If a student already has some healthcare education and experience, there are 12 to 15 month ultrasound-specific programs, often university- or hospital-based. There are also four-year bachelor’s degree programs, which give students the most exposure to the various ultrasound specialties and a strong knowledge of other imaging modalities. The associate degree path is the most common path for aspiring diagnostic medical sonographers. Many two-year colleges offer an associate degree program, which often follows completion of an X-ray or other allied health program. Most other sonographers work in doctors’ offices, diagnostic facilities and outpatient centers where the hours are predictable and shifts can be anywhere from a few hours a week to full-time work, depending on the job.Įarn an associate or bachelor's degree or attend a non-degree program, depending on your circumstances. Often, hospital-based sonographers will get rotations of being on-call, which means they will have to be ready to return to the hospital at any hour of the night, weekend, or holiday if an emergency ultrasound is needed. ![]() Most sonographers (about 60 percent) work in hospitals. Their skills and expertise help the medical team to safely and painlessly assess and diagnose medical conditions that otherwise could only be detected with more invasive and often risky procedures. Turning sound waves into images sounds like magic, but that’s what diagnostic medical sonographers do on a daily basis. ![]() What looks like a grainy image to the rest of us provides a wealth of valuable information to a skilled sonographer. These professionals use their own judgment and understanding of pathology to record images that represent possible abnormalities. Sonographers must be tech-savvy enough to apply this sophisticated technology to manipulate and optimize the images, yet also be personable enough to put patients at ease who might be nervous or uncomfortable. They direct the ultrasound waves to the region under examination via a handheld device known as a transducer. Given that there are so many uses of ultrasound, sonographers usually specialize in one or two areas of the body, such as the abdomen, breast, urology, musculoskeletal system, or obstetrics and gynecology. Because ultrasonography uses simple, high-frequency sound waves, it is safe to use on all patients, from pregnant women to babies, children, and the elderly. The images that sonographers create help radiologists and other physicians pinpoint the locations of soft tissue problems that can’t be seen well using other medical imaging techniques. It also is highly valuable when looking at blood vessels and detecting problems with blood flow and blockages within arteries and veins. It is often a doctor’s first choice to view fluid-filled or soft tissue structures in the body, such as the heart, kidneys, liver, and most internal organs. However, sonography is used for so much more than pregnancies. Ultrasound is most commonly known for producing amazing pictures of a fetus in the womb, and is used to detect and monitor many types of pregnancy complications and fetal abnormalities.
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