Ultrasound Technician

X-rays use radiation to see inside the body; ultrasounds use sound waves. This safer alternative lets an Ultrasound Technician examine everything from the body’s organs to a growing fetus in an expectant mother’s womb. By choosing the proper equipment, Ultrasound Technicians can create videos or photographs of the inside of the body that Doctors then use to monitor pregnancies and diagnose illnesses.

As an Ultrasound Technician, your day starts when the first patient arrives. After taking them to an examination room, you give them some privacy to change into a hospital gown. It’s important to explain to each person how the ultrasound works. While the procedure is completely painless, you don’t want a startled patient leaping off the table and running out on you.

Once in their gown, the patient lies back on the examination table and you apply gel to the examination area. When you start up the ultrasound machine, which closely resembles an old TV set, you can monitor the images onscreen to see that the examination is successful.

You choose the right equipment and run a scanner-like device, known as a transducer, over the area, be it the belly of a pregnant woman or the chest of a patient with heart problems. Soon the inside of the body appears onscreen.

After 10 to 15 minutes of examination, you give the patient a towel to clean up all that gooey gel. You pass the images on to the Doctor, and soon the patient can rest easy knowing exactly what their diagnosis is.