Ultrasound physics and instrumentation in clinical practice and application: An ARDMS task survey

Abstract

The American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers administers certification examinations in various specialty areas. To ensure that these examinations reflect the application of these principles and instrumentation to clinical practice, the American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers regularly surveys sonographers to determine current practice. The Ultrasound Physics and Instrumentation Examination Development Task Force conducted a task analysis survey of a random sample of 7,000 registered and unregistered sonographers. The ultrasound physics and instrumentation examination content outline was revised to reflect changes in practice as evident from the survey results. This revision was also reviewed by scientists, authors, lectures, and sonography educators. Evaluation also included assessing the feasibility of the content outline for use as an educational curriculum outline for ultrasound physics and instrumentation courses and reviewing current textbooks and other resources to ensure availability of information in each outline content area. The most notable change is the broad use of electronic and Doppler instrumentation by sonographers. As a result, the transducer, instrumentation, and Doppler sections of the outline have been significantly revised, while reference to mechanical transducers have been reduced and static scanners eliminated. Increased use of digital and semidigital image archive systems provided the rationale to expand the image storage and display portion of the outline. The artifacts section has been reorganized to reflect the way each artifact appears within an image. Quality assurance has been expanded to include Doppler equipment and statistical indices. Lastly, the section on bioeffects and safety now includes the acoustic output labeling standards, thermal and mechanical indices.