If you haven't spent a lot of time in hospitals, you're probably most familiar with ultrasounds, or sonography, from its use in looking in on unborn babies. Sonograms can look inside without exposing a person to X-ray radiation, so they are especially suited to checking a developing fetus. Sonograms use sound waves, much like sonar is used on submarines.

Being an Ultrasound Tech

Ultrasound technicians can work in doctors' offices and clinics or a hospital, and the job prospects, like those for most health care related professions, is expected to remain good at least through the 2020s. In addition to using ultrasound to peek at developing babies, doctors use sonography as a diagnostic tool for abdominal problems, to get a glimpse of the heart at work and as a painless way to do breast examinations (although they are less revealing than X-ray mammograms or scans like CTs or MRIs). Ultrasound techs don't just operate the machines. They take patient histories, perform sonograms and report the findings to the doctors.

Training in Tampa

As of 2010, no states in the U.S., including Florida, have any licensing requirements for ultrasound techs, and there are large numbers of training programs in community colleges, universities and private technical schools. In Tampa, those include Hillsborough Community College, Central Florida Institute and the Sanford-Brown Institute. Still more colleges and universities with sonography programs are located 85 miles away Orlando.

Certification Counts

The American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers (ARDMS) tests and certifies ultrasound techs nationwide and has specific requirements you have to meet in order to take their test. Most training programs will include some number of clinic hours so you can get practical experience, though the training schools often offer fewer hours and less desirable placements. Where you go to school matters. At least 150 ultrasound technician training programs have been accredited by the Commission on Accreditation for Allied Health Education Programs (CAAHEP). In 2007, ARDMS required 1,680 hours of documented work as an ultrasound tech before testing if you did not go through a CAAHEP-approved program and did not have a bachelors degree in a related field. If you take the two-year, 72-credit diagnostic medical sonography technology program at Hillsborough Community College program, that counts as the equivalent 586 hours of clinical or laboratory training.

Training Time

A lot of health care workers are adding sonography training to their list of skills to make themselves more employable or to move up at work. Some can get by with a one-year certification program. Most vocational training programs for sonography technicians (including those in community college) are two years long, while colleges and universities offer four-year degree programs. Either one is acceptable.

Source:

Medical Career Training: Sonographer

Education Portal: Ultrasound Tech

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More Information:

Central Florida Institute

Sanford-Brown Institute, Tampa