I’m going to preface this with stating that I come across these “controversies” on a weekly basis, sometimes daily. These are regular and frequent. I give people the benefit of the doubt because our field is a relatively new one in healthcare, especially as the technology and what we are able to do with it improves so rapidly. Sonography is not popularized, but in the ways that it is, it is often misconstrued. So, here’s what we in the sonography community would like to clear the air on:

 

1.) We are not nurses. We are not techs. We are sonographers.

“Nurse”: it is a disservice to both us and the people who actually do hold this position when we are given their title. It suggests that anyone who wears scrubs and doesn’t have an MD is a “nurse”. It becomes a lumping term, diminishing the hard work that we have each given to earn our individual titles and the credit they are due. Our schooling is completely different from nurses. Our licensing is completely different from nurses. Our avenue of patient care is completely different from nurses.

If it doesn’t walk or talk like a duck, it ain’t a duck, people.

“Technologist/Technician”: I have a degree, a college degree. I received that degree from a university. Thousands of dollars have been spent on my career, between college, boards, and continuing education, not to mention the hundreds of hours of training that I have received in specialized testing.

I am NOT a tech.

 

2.) Our job is not “easy”.

(Refer to #3 and #5)

I know that it can be deceiving, seeing as how we wear glorified pajamas everyday to work, but c’mon. My schooling may have been less than most healthcare professionals, but my field is so specialized that I didn’t need the extraneous classes that most spend two whole years taking.

Even so, doesn’t that register as the condescending and ignorant question that it is? Especially when it comes from the person who is putting their child/grandchild’s life in our hands?

Which leads me to our next statement…

 

3.) We don’t just scan pregnant women.

Hearts. Vessels. Scrotums. Breasts. Thyroids. Kidneys. Livers. Gallbladders. Pancreases. Spleens. Muscles. Ovaries. Uteruses. Miscellaneous lumps and bumps. We assist in the extraction of extra fluid out of the belly, lungs, and amniotic sac. And let’s not forget biopsies.

But that’s not all folks. Not only can we scan adults, but also children, neonates, fetuses, even animals too!

 

4.) …And of those of us that do, our job isn’t to establish the gender of the baby.

I get it, guys. It’s fun to celebrate the coming of new life/helping mom and dad out by buying stuff for baby. And nowadays, they make such cute clothes and nifty contraptions! I’m in the phase of life now where my peers are beginning to have children and I enjoy pouring out gifts just as much as the next person!

So, hear me out: my title is Diagnostic Medical Sonographer. This means that my job is to capture images that will demonstrate to the radiologists/obstetricians/perinatologists the medical condition of the unborn baby. Gender is included in this because there are gender-specific, genetic malformations and anomalies that can occur.

So, being able to tell a relative what color confetti to fill balloons with for a gender reveal party is not my top priority…and it shouldn’t be theirs either.

 

5.) It’s okay that you don’t know what you’re looking at.

This one particularly cracks me up (and internally eye roll). It usually comes in the form of “I don’t understand how you can tell what everything is”. For real? It’s my job to be able to “tell what everything is”! That’s what you’re paying the hospital to pay me for!

Listen, the regular Joe Shmoe can’t adequately interpret a CT scan. Or an MRI. Or an X-Ray. And there really isn’t an attitude of expectation that they would be able to. So, since ultrasound is also an imaging service, I don’t understand why that expectation to be able to “tell what everything is” exists any more than if they were trying to read any other sort of image. All in all, it’s not a stretch to say that a trained eye is required to fully comprehend an ultrasound. (Refer to #2)

If it looks like a bunch of gray, that’s because it is (256 shades of gray, to be exact).

 

 

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed this informative (and slightly humourous) post! If you’d like to see more, subscribe to my blog and share!

Also, please follow me on Instagram and Snapchat (@sightseeingsono) to see my adventures in Washington, DC!