Archive for April 2010
When most people think of a career in ultrasound, they picture the typical scene of a pregnant woman having a wand-like device over her belly with a picture of a growing fetus; however, many are unaware of the many additional interesting options in the this field. The field of diagnostic medical sonography is growing every year with new uses of the technology, but the most common specializations include: abdominal sonography, obstetric and gynecological, vascular sonography, neurosonology, and cardiac sonography.
As you might guess, an abdominal sonographer specializes in the imaging of the abdominal area of both male and female patients examining organs such as the pancreas, liver, gall bladder, and kidneys. Because this region of the body has so many important organs with a variety of functions, abdominal sonography is a world of it’s own.
Obstetric and gynecological sonography encompass the scenario I mentioned earlier in which the progress of a pregnancy is monitored, but it also encompasses the imaging of non-pregnant women to ensure the organs in their pelvic region are working properly. These organs include the ovaries, cervix, bladder, fallopian tubes, and more.
Cardiac sonography is primarily concerned with the functioning of the heart, valve function, and pumping capacity. When someone is experiencing chest pains, an echocardiography can reveal potential hazards and pave the way to diagnosing problems. A related specialization is vascular sonography is used to view the flow of blood through the blood vessels and to detect any problems such as clots forming. It is often used in conjunction with procedures such as angioplasty, which is used to reopen a blocked vessel.
Lastly, neurosonology is the use of ultrasound technology to view the brain, neck, and head region. It is used to detect problems with the nervous system or the formation of a brain tumor. Stroke victims are often scanned to determine the extent of any damage done.
While this is by no means a complete list of specializations within the field of ultrasound, hopefully it has familiarized you with some of the more common avenues to take. Learn more about ultrasound career options and how to find schools offering ultrasound programs.
Finding the Best Ultrasound School for You
So you want to become a diagnostic medical sonographer and you’ve begun the search for an ultrasound school. Finding the right school for you and your career aspirations can seem like a daunting task. You first must decide if there is a particular specialized area within the field that has sparked your interest, or if you are simply looking for a general education in sonography. The world of diagnostic sonography seems to grow and expand every year as the uses of the technology prove to work well for a variety of diagnostic and interventional procedures. Among the most common areas of study are: abdominal sonography, cardiac sonography (echocardiography), obstetric and gynecological, vascular, neurosonology, and ophthalmology. Reading this list alone is enough to make your head spin and wonder where to start.
Many ultrasound schools have now begun to shape their programs in such a way as to provide you with a solid core set of knowledge about the science and technology used in ultrasound, then they allow you to choose one or two additional sub specialties to learn more about such as obstetrics or vascular technology. Each school is slightly different, so I would encourage you to begin researching programs from a variety of schools in your area. Request information from schools and find out how their programs work and ask about the types of entry level jobs former graduates have been able to obtain upon graduation.
Start by learning all about your options within the field of ultrasound and find ultrasound schools near you.
Lactation consultants strive to promote, support and protect breastfeeding among all famililes. The benefits of breastfeeding are particularly advantageous for families living in vulnerable situations. Special emphasis must be placed on meeting the needs of those who are less able to access breastfeeding help because of financial, language, geographic, and cultural barriers. Lactation consultants shoudl endeavor to develop cultural competency in order to address these barriers. Lactation consultants should be aware of the need to assist families in disaster situations, whether realted to natural events, wars, or other events. Low income families are a vulnerable population regarding breastfeeding. In some nations, low-income mothers breastfeed at the highest rates; in other nations the reverse is true. The reason being is that the percieved value of breastfeeding versus formula. Formula is beyond the economic rach of low-income families in many developing nations. Often, formula has a greater perceived value than breast milk, and the ability to purchase formula can be a status symbol in some communities. Care providers and their clients might have divergent beliefs about issues such as the etiology of problems, appropriate care plans, and so on. This is why, as a lactation consultant, it is very important to explore each clients’ viewpoint to arrive at a mutually acceptable plan for care. There are cultural beliefs and practices such as, avoiding feeding babies colostrum, have an impact on the choice of whether to breastfeed. The practice of feeding an infant other foods (formula included) during the first days of life might lead healthcare workers to assume incorrectly that a mother has chosen not to breastfeed. It is important to communicate openly with your clients, once you are a certified lactation consultant, regardless of income level, language barrier, cultural beliefs, or age of new mother.
The mother serves as the Baby’s immune system during prenatal and postpartum stages. The placenta passes maternal antibodies to the baby, and this protection persists for several weeks to months. The fetus also breathes and ingests/digests amniotic fluid, which provides significant amounts of protien. The colostrum is extremely concentrated with anti-infective properties. In fact, evolutionary evidence sugests that the earliest function of colostrum was to protect the the you with nutirition being a secondary purpose. Do you know what colosturm is? Colostrum, by deffinition, is the thin yellowish/white fluid secreted by the mammary glands at the time of parturition that is rich in antibodies and minerals. Human babies have a proportionally longer duration of colostrum feedings then other mammals. The actions/features of milk components that protect the infant and the lactating breast are first; they actively bind to pathogens, thus preventing their passage through the permeable infant gut mucosa. Components are highly targeted to foreign pathogens and ignor eth infant’s healthy gut flora. Second, it binds and reduces availability of nutrients, vitamins, and/or minerals needed by pathogens. Third, cellular components directly attack pathogens through phagocytosis. Fourth, they trigger and enhance development and maturation of infant’s own immune system, including the increased effectiveness of immunizations. Fifth, they support optimal growth and maturaton of the infant gut, respiratory, and urogenital tracts, and sixth, they prevent or reduce inflamation in infant organs and tissures which protects them from infections. Lactation consultant certification is an interesting field to pursue. Many new mothers need guidance with lactation and how the mammory glands work. If you are interested in babys, lactation, mothers and newborns, sonography would be an excellent degree to pursue. Lactation consultant certification could be an excellent complimentary profession to a sonography degree, or as a specialized degree in the allied health fields.
The mother’s immune system serves as the baby’s immune system, especially for the first six months during exclusive breasfeeding. Breastfeeding and human milk fills an “immunologic gap” between the time when placetnally acquired immunity protects the fetus before brith, and approximately age three to four when the child’s own immune system is robustly fuctional. Current global reccomendations are: immediate breastfeeding in the first half hour of birth; exclusive breast feeding for six months, followed by breastfeeding with complementary foods for two or more years. There are multiple mechanisms whereby milk componenets protect the nursling: active attack of pathogens, including: inactivation, binding and destruction; binding nutrients needed by pathogens, creating an inhospitable milieu for pathogen growth and reproduction; and enhancing growth, activity, effectiveness, and maturation of the infant’s own immune system. The mother’s secretory immune system provides targeted protection against pathogens to which she or the baby has been exposed. The lymphcytes provide additonal protection in the infant’s gut. Milk contains soluble components with ummunologic properties and living cells that are immunologically specific. Non-breastfeeding human infants experience and acquired imunodeficiency that increases the risk of infections and other diseases. The antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, and ummuonmodulating agents in human milk are multi-functional, act synergistically and compensate for developmental days in the infant. Breastfeeding is strongly protective against allergys, delaying the onset and lessening of symptoms in the child. Dietary prophylaxis during pregnancy and exclusive breastfeeding for six months is reccomended. Breastfeeding avoids infant exposure to dietary allergens and slows or prevents absorption of all allergens through the gut.
Wow, I just found a really good site that talks about how to become an ultrasound technician. The site looks like a radiology site, but actually has a lot of valuable information about complimentary careers as well, such as an ultrasound technician. Although it may seem like an ultrasound technician and a radiology schools couldn’t be more different, they actually have some similarities. You may be dealing with different patients and different symptoms and illnesses, but both professions use non-intrusive imaging. There is different equipment, but that only takes training. Usually when we think of an ultrasound technician we imagine pregnant mothers who visit the doctor all through out their term to catch images called a sonogram to put a picture to the growth of the fetus. As months wear on you learn all about your babies growth with the help and knowledge of an ultrasound technician. With a radiologist it is more like x-rays. Whenever I imagine a radiologist, I think of sports injuries when I was a little kid. A broken arm in softball, or a sprained ankle in basketball. We always rushed to the doctor to get an x-ray so we could see how bad the injury was. The truth is, more and more radiologists are getting education in complimentary fields and ultrasound technician is one of the most useful. Anyways, if you are interested in becoming a radiologist technician, and you want to learn more about related allied health fields, www.radiology-schools.com has been an incredible resource to many. Not only can you learn about lots of related careers, but you can find all the information you will need to get the education that best suits your goals.
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Lactation Consultant Certification: Tube Feeding Devices
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There are commercially available devices and they usually consist of a reservoir or container for milk. The container for milk can be a syringe, a bottle clipped to the shoulder area, a bottle suspended on a cord around the mother’s neck, a plastic bag, or a bottle with a regular artificial nipple through which the tubing is threaded. The container might have one or two thin lengths of flexible tubing. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions for using larger or smaller tubing sizes. Note: Tubing is usually attached by tape to the mother’s nipple or to a finger of the feeder. Uses: To provide complimentary feeding to an infant at the breast for low milk supply, inefficient suckling, slow weight gain, adoptive nursing, relactation, preterm infant, or for neurologically affected infants. The tubing can also be attached to a finger for others to feed the baby or to prime the baby for going to the breast. The advantages of tube feeding devices is that it avoids the use of artificial nipples, might help improve sucking organizations patterns, enables delivery of supplements if needed while preserving the breastfeeding, and increases the flow rate at the breast which may encourage an otherwise reluctant infant to breast feed. Some of the disadvantages is more intrusive and complex techniques to learn and to repeat many times per day (may be rejected by mothers), supplies might not be widely available, cost, infant can become dependent on the method, infant can learn to prefer faster flow rate at breast, the infant might exhibit shallow jaw excursions while sucking on an adult finger, time consuming to clean the equipment, awkward, and there is little published research on the efficacy of feeding tube devices and the manufacturers are the source of the information.
The medical term for the breast is the mammary gland, which come from the Latin word Mamma, meaning “the breast.” The mammary gland is the organ that is not fully developed at birth. It undergoes four major phases of growth and development: in utero, during the first two years of life, at puberty and finally during pregnancy and lactation. The breast provides both nutrition and nurturing. The lactation consultant requires a basic understanding of the structures and functions of the breatst in order to provide proper breastfeeding manangement guidelines and to troubleshoot problems. The first stage of breast development is what we will be talking about today. Breast development begins at week 3-4 with a primitive milk streak running bilaterall from the axilla to the groin. Week 4-5 a milk streak becomes mammary milk ridge, or milk line. Paired breasts develop from this line of glandualar tissue. Week 7-8 Thickening and inward growth into the chest will continue. Week 12-16 specialized cells differentiate into smooth muscle of nipple and areola. Week 15-25 Eithelial strips are formed which represent future secretory alveoli. It is at this time that Lactiferous ducts and their branches form and open into shallow epithelial depression known as the mammary pit. The mammary pit becomes elevated forming the nipple and areola. An inverted nipple results when the pit fails to elevate. After 32 weeks a lumen canal forms in each part of the branching system. Near term is at 15-25 weeks. Mammary ducts form at this point and form the fetal mammary gland. Finally, it is the stage of Neonate. Learn more about the stages of breast development in our next blog.
