Spreading the Word: It’s a Two-Way Street
For the past several years I've been visiting high schools (and occasionally elementary schools) to teach students about diagnostic medical sonography and the role of the sonographer. Although the primary objective of these trips is to encourage students to consider pursuing DMS careers, I spend the majority of the time just educating them about ultrasound technology and clinical applications---with a heavy emphasis on the fact that its not just used to see unborn babies! I do a prepared PowerPoint presentation first, and then I do a scanning demonstration using a portable scanner (SonoSite) and one of the students as a model.
Last Friday I visited a local high school and provided two separate 43-minute sessions to juniors and seniors enrolled in human anatomy and physiology courses. The highlight of these events is always the scanning demonstrations. Regardless of the age of the students, they are universally amazed at "how cool" it is to peer inside the human body and see things like the heart valves opening and closing and the color flow depiction of blood flow in the carotid arteries and kidneys.
The students and their teachers are very appreciative of what I have to share with them and I must say it's a two-way street---I find the experience immensely rewarding too. Every time I do these "outreach" programs I come away with a renewed appreciation of just how powerful a diagnostic tool the ultrasound scanner is and how fascinating sonography is in general. (I've written before about how I learned about the field of sonography and how much I like using acoustic energy for diagnoses--see my previous blog entry The Amazing Diversity of Acoustic Energy.)
During these presentations, I explain to the students that performing sonographic exams is like playing detective in a video game but we get paid for it and we are helping people get well too---how cool is that?
A few years ago I received an AIUM Endowment for Education and Research (EER) grant for a project entitled "Enhancing Awareness of the Diagnostic Medical Sonography Professions: A High School Outreach Program." As part of that grant I agreed to create a PowerPoint presentation that I would provide to others free of charge so that they could offer similar presentations to students in schools near them. I am getting close to finalizing the presentation and hope to share it with anyone who is interested. I'll keep you posted on those developments.
In the mean time, if you want to have some fun and educate students in your area about the field of sonography, I would strongly encourage you to consider contacting the school's guidance counselors or science teachers and offer to visit them. You can provide a formal presentation like I do or just bring a portable scanner and provide a live demonstration. Either way, the kids will love it and I'll wager that you will too. If you'd like some suggestions on how to get something like this started in your area, please feel free to drop me an email. Conversely, if you've done something like this already, please consider sharing your experiences with us in a comment added to this bog.