Cardiovascular Echo Tech

Duties and Responsibilities

Echocardiography technicians are also sometimes referred to as diagnostic cardiac sonographers, cardiac sonographers, or just simply echocardiographers. As an echocardiography technician, your main occupational tasks involve creating images of the heart, cardiac chambers, valves, and vessels for the purpose of assessing heart function and diagnosing heart ailments. You will work closely with cardiologists, often performing the technical aspects of the examinations, evaluating the findings, and reporting them to the cardiologists.

You will also be responsible for interviewing the patients and reviewing their medical records so that you may adapt your sonographic techniques as necessity dictates. You provide patient care, such as preparing the patients for the sonographic imaging and providing them with instruction during the echocardiograph so that the images turn out properly. You perform echocardiography on patients while they are lying down or while they are on a treadmill to assess their heart while under physically stressful situations.

Education and Licensing Information

Some post-secondary education is generally required to become an echocardiography technician, such as a certificate or associate's degree in echocardiography or diagnostic cardiac sonography. These educational programs instruct you in normal and abnormal cardiac anatomy, ultrasound instrumentation, cardiac scanning techniques, and many other key areas of echocardiography.

Once you've graduated from such a program, you may choose to seek certification, which, although voluntary, will greatly increase your attractiveness to potential employers. You may choose to become a Registered Cardiac Sonographer through the Cardiovascular Credentialing International or a Registered Diagnostic Cardiac Sonographer through the American Registry for Diagnostic Medical Sonography.

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