Sometimes I don’t know what my damage is, but today I know. I fear my career is coming to an end and it’s NOT by choice.
I leave for work early so I can sit at a park and do a seven-minute meditation. I try so hard to focus more on breathing and less on thinking. I have been walking around with an emesis bag because I am nauseated more often than I am not. I was embarrassed about that once, but somehow I have managed to not give a shit lately.
Small victories.
Every day, I wake up wondering the same thing. Is this it? Is this the day I blow my shoulder out? Is today the day I perform an ultrasound and jack up my neck beyond repair?
In 2002 when I decided to go back to school to be a sonographer, I had high hopes of helping people with my new finely tuned skill set.
Today, performing ultrasounds is sort of the same, it just hurts more. For twenty-two years, I’ve been proud of what I do. It’s part of my identity and now it is diminished, rushed, and pain-inducing. All of this is out of my control.
Healthcare is a numbers game now and every patient should be alarmed by this.
When I began my career, I had a reasonable patient volume. Today, it seems healthcare giants see patients as a number. The quicker we can get you in and out, the better it is for those NOT performing the ultrasound itself and certainly not the patient. It’s really sad what goes down at some facilities, not all, but some. Facilities with an administration educated enough in ultrasound know we should be protected. The radiologists put all their trust in us and our ability to get them the information they need to dictate a formal report.
My morals and desire for quality treatment of patients simply do not align with the type of patient care offered by some imaging facilities.
We are the only operator-dependent imaging modality. In other words, we do not put patients in a machine so the machine can get the images. It’s us. Our eyes, ears, overall knowledge, and body mechanics capture the images. In addition to that, we have a heavy mental and emotional load.
Is it hard being a sonographer? I see this question a lot. On Quora, FB etc.
Let me tell you.
Imagine prepping a vibrant 60-something-year-old woman to perform an abdominal ultrasound for epigastric pain and left upper quadrant pain. She lays down excited to tell me her recent family news. She’s pleasant and super stoked! Her daughter just got engaged and they are planning the wedding of her dreams next summer.
I tuck towels into her shirt and pants to shield them from the gel and I place my transducer over her abdomen. She’s giddy with excitement rattling off venues and floral arrangement ideas.
As I listen intently and proceed with my exam, suddenly I have to multitask in the most horrendous way. With a smile on my face falsely displaying my excitement for her, I have been gut-punched. She has a mass the size of a clementine orange in the tail of her pancreas that is occluding her splenic vein. She has masses in her liver too. She’s fucked!
At that moment, I am the only one in the whole world who knows she will not be at her daughter’s wedding unless they move it up. Way up!
It’s a heavy load. How do I bounce back from that before my next exam?
I don’t. The answer is, I don’t ever bounce back. I know that in a few short hours, she will get a notification that her results are in. She’ll open her email to read her grim results right from her smartphone.
‘G-d, I hope she isn’t alone.’
Imagine scanning a hopeful expectant mother on her seventh and final IVF attempt. It’s a success!
Until it’s not.
At twenty-four weeks she comes in for a growth scan excited to see me again. I’ve scanned her before, multiple times. I know the personal details of her struggle because we’ve spent a few hours together now. I’m thrilled for her and her abundantly supportive partner.
I put my transducer on her belly as I have many times before, only this time is much different. I can’t see very well. She has no amniotic fluid. As I guide my transducer over the fetal heart, I see there is no motion. No fetal heart tones. Their last IVF hope is shattered and I am the only one who knows it. I can’t share with them what I know. By law, I can’t give results and I need to send them upstairs to the OB doc waiting to give them devastating news. When I tell her I need to send her to the clinic, she knows something is gravely wrong. She starts to cry and asks me point-blank, “Is my baby ok?”
“I’m really sorry, I can’t give you the results, but I’ve made arrangements for you to meet with the OB upstairs right now.”
She fell to her knees. I sat on the floor with her and held her hand until someone brought us a wheelchair and I transported her to the OB clinic myself. Lump in my throat and all.
I never saw the patient again. Obviously, I still think of her though.
That’s just the mentally draining aspect of what we do. I haven’t even gotten to the physically painful part for us.
Repetitive motion and overuse of our right arm, shoulder, wrist, and neck have forced many of us to require routine physical therapy and massage. Even surgery for some of us.
There is an endless list of activities I can no longer do with my kids because it’s too painful or I stress about making it worse.
Throwing a ball around, kayaking, bowling, pickleball, frisbee golf etc. How do I lift weights when it’s become hard for me to put a shirt on?
Who can help us? Who can regulate the workload for sonographers?
Even baseball pitchers have a limit.
We’ll just keep being abused. I was working 5/8’s and I went down to 4/9’s, next I went to 4/8’s. Am I being pushed out? Are long-time, dedicated sonographers shit out of luck if we can’t manage to find a place willing to hire someone 3/8’s?
Who protects us? Nobody. We have to change careers. I thought I would retire from a career that gave me purpose and now I’m not so sure. I’m so burnt out I’ve been looking at all jobs with my qualifications.
‘I have a clean driving record. I could be an Uber driver.’
I’ve worked in hospitals and outpatient clinics. I’ve been on call and worked evenings and occasional weekends. Holidays and all.
I’m infuriated and bitter. Paranoid and anxious and in pain 100% of the time. I spend my days off going to doctor’s appointments and physical therapy.
What am I to do? I feel so lost and depressed because my career is being taken away from me. I can’t do 10 patients in an 8 hr shift anymore, let alone 13, 14 or more. It’s simply unsustainable.
Even current job posts are baiting potential candidates by advertising a reasonable number of patients because this has become a universal issue. Shouldn’t that tell our fearless leaders something? Often the administration is praised and awarded bonuses when our productivity is high. Why would they want to protect us when they benefit from us?
So, to answer the question I get so often. Is being a sonographer hard?
Yes, it’s hard. For many, many reasons.
If anyone has an inside scoop about potential jobs for a seasoned sonographer looking for a place that offers compassionate and necessary timed care, please let me know. Many of us are looking.
Jessica Dugan, RDMS
