Advanced musculoskeletal ultrasound course

All the lecturers on our courses have completed formal training MSK Sonography and have been using MSK Ultrasound for several years. Crucially, they are clinicians with many years experience of integrating ultrasound into their practice alongside other forms of imaging such as MRI giving a great breadth of experience to enable them to teach ultrasound in the correct clinical context.

Several teach on PG Cert MSK Ultrasound University based courses as guest lecturers, and present at different events each year. The lecturers are also members of executive committees of professional organisations such as the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, The Royal College of Radiologists and British Association of Sports and Exercise Medicine, so are very familiar with MSK ultrasound and injection therapy development within different professional roles.

We know the importance of hands-on practice when scanning! As we’ve been there when we were learning! So we can reply with a massive YES! The course is designed with high lecturer:student ratios, with on average a lecturer for every 5 students. We have a large number of machines to ensure that as much time as possible is spent with the students scanning under close supervision. We understand the subtlety of moving a probe to ensure you achieve a high quality diagnostic image. We try to provide a selection of machines including hand held mobile devices, laptop systems and cart based – this gives you the ideal opportunity to trial systems and work out what might suitable for you.

Surprisingly, a sonographer is not a protected title and therefore anyone can theoretically call themselves a ‘sonographer’. I guess a better way to pose this question would be ‘does this deem me competent to perform ultrasound in the setting I wish to use it in?’. Well, this depends on the setting and the local governance but essentially this course is designed as an important first step for people who are considering an ultrasound qualification, or who are interested in learning ultrasound to give them an idea of how ultrasound may fit into their practice. The course can also serve as a refresher, perhaps for certain joints.

To undertake a formal qualification which would lead you to be able to work in for example Radiology departments within the NHS you would need to progress on to complete a PG Cert qualification on a CASE accredited course. This course would place you in a strong position before starting your CASE course. We are creating a University accredited CASE course at the moment and hope to release news in early 2018!

Because we have a large ratio of lecturers to students, there will be someone overseeing and teaching with each group for as much time as possible throughout the day to ensure that you are handling the probe correctly and there are lots of tips on image optimisatio and use of the machine technology to get the best image! Basically, we will be peering over your shoulder! After the course you can also join us on our Medshr group, to keep touch and share images for feedback and as a record of your ongoing learning.

The advantages of doing this course is that all of the tutors have extensive experience of working with ultrasound and ultrasound guided injections working within busy Radiology, NHS , Private and Sports injuries clinics..we have it all covered! Most importantly, we are enthusiastic and passionate about teaching..that is why we set this up in our spare time!