Diagnostic Medical Sonography

Diagnostic Medical Sonography uses high frequency sound waves to produce images of organs, masses, fluid collections, and vascular structures within the human body. Sonography is user dependent, requiring competent and highly skilled professionals to be a part of the integral health care system. Sonographers have extensive, direct patient contact, providing care to a variety of people from healthy to critically ill. The sonographer is responsible for obtaining pertinent patient history, performing the sonographic examination, providing for the needs and comfort of the patient during examination, and recording anatomy and pathology or other data for interpretation by the supervising physician to aid in diagnosis.

Sonography is commonly used in the field of obstetrics and gynecology for purposes ranging from confirming and/or dating pregnancies to diagnosing disease processes of the female reproductive system. Sonographers must have knowledge of normal structure and functional anatomy of the human body and use independent judgment in recognizing the need to perform procedures according to sonographic findings.