If you are considering attending Sanford Brown Institute in Tampa, I'm going to give you some food for thought. I just recently graduated from Sanford Brown Institute in April with my occupational associates degree in Diagnostic Medical Sonography. I had a GPA of 3.7. I attended the evening program - Monday thru Thursday 6pm-10:30pm
I wish I had never gone to this school. I should have done my homework and researched the school before I spent the $32,700 I wasted on my "education". I should have really suspected something when all the admissions officer could talk about the amount of money I'd make in Ultrasound. Bells and whistles should have gone off at that point. He said they were acredited. Well yeah, accredited with the Southern Association of Colleges or some other BS organization. I didn't ask if they were CAAHEP accredited - which is what you want - if you want to attend an accredited DMS program. If you are not a grad of a CAAHEP accredited school you are not permitted to sit for your ARDMS registry until you have worked in the field for 1 year. Most places won't hire you unless you have experience and/or your registry.
The program is a series of 5 week modules consisting of classroom intruction and lab time. This lasts for 12 months. At the end of each 5 week mod, there is a final in both written and scanning on an ultrasound machine. There are also weekly quizes and homework due about every other day. There is so much material covered that its almost impossible to cover it all, let alone remember it. Whatsmore the exams and quizes are NOT made up by the instructors of the course but by the department head. So the instructor really can't go over the material you will be tested on ahead of time. Tests are given to the instructors minutes before they are given to the US students.instructors are ultrasound techs that work during the day and only instruct a few nights a week. They do not not have teaching credentials so they basically read page for page out of the textbook. You are required to attend class and can be dismissed from the program if you miss over a certain percentage of time.
There is lab once a week and 24 or so students take turn scanning on 6 ultrasound machines. Lab is from 6-10:30pm with a half hour brake for dinner.
The machines are older models and some of them are cardiac machines and not for general ultrasound. So a student may only get 30-40 minutes on the machines, once a week. They are then at the end of the mod required to memorize a series of pictures and take those in order. Another student is scanned by another and rotate to take the final. Often the pictures on the final for that module are not the same as the protocol for a place you end up getting a job/externship, so you don't learn it right. Whatsmore, certain areas like upper extremity arms and lower extremity legs, both arterial and vascular are not covered at all. Transvaginal is not covered in lab either. OB, which in the real world is a series of 35 or so pictures, with measurements, etc is watered down to a lab final in which only 5 or so pictures are required.
Well, once done with your 12 months of classroom, you have to do a 6 month externship. Most places around Tampa do not want Sanford Brown students so sites are tough to find. The externship is without pay so some places are so desperate to find US techs, they will accept students. Often, these sites only allow limited time to scan as they have hired Sanford Brown techs after graduation and have seen how poor their education was. A few lucky externs get sympathetic techs who teach them what they really need to know but most are put a sites where the techs make them do the grunt work (changing the sheets, lifting patients, etc) but don't teach them much. Other sites are imaging centers with low numbers of patients with basically the same few exams done constantly, and some never done at all. As a result, upon completing externship only a handful of grads have the skills to get hired in the US world. Most have to relocate to parts of the country so desperate for techs that they would take Sanford Brown grads. That or you have to take a 3rd shift position at a hospital and have no life.
My advise is if you are thinking about DMS, go on the CAAHEP website and look up accredited programs. You will see Sanford Brown Tampa isn't there.
I write this because I don't want other to make the same mistake I did. Ultrasound is extremely tough to learn and CAT or MRI is a better path. CAT and MRI is 10x easier than learning ultrasound. But if you do take ultrasound go to an accredited program. Ultrasound is hard enough to learn as it is but it even harder when you go to a lousy school. I hope I helped you out...
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