Everybody Has Their Roots

This blog is about one man's learning experiences in the healthcare field and eventually charting progress into other fields and eventually even personal life like fitness. It's a motivational journal to keep me on track to achieving my short and long term goals over the next few years. So with that in mind, I'm setting my first two goals for today related to Echocardiography.

Echocardiography is the skill needed to obtain 2D and with new technology, 3D images of the heart using sound waves. But for an echocardiography (echo from here on out) technician, only obtaining quality views of the heart is insufficient. A large emphasis is put on cardiac anatomy as well as cardiac disease processes. The reason behind it is simple: You have to obtain all of the information the cardiologist needs to make a diagnosis. When dealing with structures varying in size from fractions of a centimeter to a few centimeters, precision and experience is key to preventing an errant diagnosis.

Echo Goals

• Long Term
• Be able to perform clinical echocardiograms without assistance
• Short Term
  • May 2008
  • Obtain echocardiography materials for learning
  • Review and learn standard anatomy of all 7 standard transthoracic views
  • Gain familiarity with normal values for anatomical measurements