Department of Medical Imaging Sciences Vascular Technology Program

Frequently Asked Questions

WHAT CAN I EXPECT TO EARN?

This Is always a tough question to answer. Based upon our graduates, the yearly starting income has increased to over $40,000.00 in area hospitals. As you may expect this is highly variable. Within the last three years there seems to have been a sudden upward push in salaries because of the lack of trained technologists. Private physician laboratories probably pay less. Large multi-laboratory companies and temp agencies pay more. Many laboratories also have on-call schedules which can boost salaries considerably. Part-time and per diem jobs are also available for those seeking flexibility.

WHY IS THE FIELD CALLED VASCULAR TECHNOLOGY?

Practitioners use ultrasound for 80% of their patient testing but a wide range of other instrumentation is also used for the remaining 20%. The incorporation of other instrument modalities produces an interesting mix of technologies for non-invasively testing the vascular patient.

HOW ARE THE TESTS PERFORMED?

Ultrasound is very different from other diagnostic modalities. A vascular ultrasound examination is not a matter of taking a series of ultrasound pictures. It may be difficult to believe but the complexities in the exam often make it difficult for an experienced sonographer to stand behind another and determine the disease state of the patient. The sonographer needs to have a hand on the probe to feel fully comfortable with the results. This is because the ultrasound exam is a multi-step puzzle-solving process with each step requiring probe manipulation to obtain a correct assessment. Each subsequent step in an ultrasound exam is determined by the previous steps. The operator has to interpret each step before moving on. The examination is complete only if the sonographer is able to combine all elements to form a coherent impression of the disease state. In vascular ultrasound, the procedure is complicated by using dynamic images to determine physiology. This is not easily documented.

It should be clear that unlike most forms of diagnostic testing, the ultrasound work-up is largely based on the skills of the technologist/sonographer. If the person manipulating the ultrasound probe misses disease, the disease will be missed by anyone reviewing the exam. This means that the vascular sonographer/technologist is the one who identifies the presence or absence of disease.

HOW DOES THE VASCULAR SONOGRAPHER INTERACT WITH THE PHYSICIAN?

In a typical Vascular Laboratory, the Vascular Surgeon is a phone call away but is not often present in the laboratory. Surgeons spend the bulk of their time in the operating room or evaluating patients. Surgeons are typically not able to perform ultrasound studies and depend upon the sonographer for the results and a preliminary interpretation. Still, Vascular Technologists are often the first to detect a vascular problem and surgery is increasingly based on the studies performed in the vascular lab. In an active lab, technologists also help to plan certain operations. Then, postoperatively, they can help determine whether a patient has to be taken back to the operating room. Hopefully you can see that a good technologist/sonographer becomes a valuable complement to the surgeon and should be someone that can be depend upon to help in the care of the vascular patient.

While vascular technologists are diagnostic sonographers, they play an important role in the long-term management of vascular patients. They often see the patient before the surgeon at each office visit and were often the ones to determine that the patient was a candidate for surgery. If the technologist sees a significant problem in a patient, they will alert the physician immediately to initiate an action. The working relationship between technologists and vascular surgeon or a referring physician can be very close. This is important to the welfare of the patient.

IS THIS THE RIGHT FIELD FOR ME?

This is a multi-pronged question.

1. People are concerned because they haven't heard about vascular technology or vascular ultrasound. It is relatively new and not a well known but it will be around for a long time. As long as there are vascular diseases and vascular surgery, there will be a need for Vascular Sonographers. Most diagnostic modalities are anatomically based. Very few are able to evaluate vascular physiology. Ultrasound procedures and the other forms of testing performed by Vascular Sonographers are unique among forms of testing.
2. Is it too specialized? Hospitals want more cross-training among personnel and laboratories also appreciate broader coverage. However, there will always be a need for specialization. There are too many generalists doing studies such as vascular ultrasound that do not know what they are doing! Anyone doing General, Cardiac, or Vascular Ultrasound on your mom or my dad should have specialized in that field or at least be supervised by a specialist. It is unavoidable that as ultrasound equipment and more diagnostics are performed non-invasively, testing will become more sophisticated. This makes it a non-issue. Good sonographers highly specialized in vascular procedures are well respected in the hospital.
3. Does it match my personality-type? This is important. We ask all potential applicants to tour the Vascular Lab. This gives them the opportunity to see first hand whether they could enjoy this line of work. We hope they will see that people in this line of work must enjoy problem-solving challenges and have good hand-eye coordination. Those who do not feel comfortable with hand coordination skills may have difficulty with this type of work. Those who thrive enjoy developing their analytical and technical skills to solve complex problems.
   They must enjoy working with patients. They will be directly in the flow of patient care, making decisions that have important consequences to the patient. They will also be interacting with many physicians who had referred the patients to the lab. Confidence is important when discussing cases with physicians. The daily work experiences are not boring. They can be as exciting and challenging as any that an individual is willing to meet.
   

Workers must also be team players, depending on each other to solve difficult cases.

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