Fast-paced, specialist work and good interaction with patients… all in a day’s work for sonographer Sally Daniels
My day starts at…
5.45am when the alarm goes off. I’m used to the London commute. I could work closer to home in Bedfordshire but I love the specialist work we do here.
My job involves…
Scanning patients and making a diagnosis from the clinical notes and what I see on the ultrasound, to help clinicians direct their treatment.
How I became a sonographer…
In my second year of radiography I did an obstetric placement and was utterly amazed. At 12 weeks and just 6cm long, you can see so much detail in the foetus. That’s when I decided I’d be a sonographer.
On a typical day I…
Work two clinics and might see around 20 or more patients in each. It’s very busy. I do paediatric and musculo-skeletal scans. I’m also doing a lot of specialist head and neck work and the team is fantastic. They are very impressive and I am learning so much.
The best thing about my job is…
It’s a combination of having a good interaction with patients, no two days being the same, a huge variety of work and great colleagues. Ultrasound has changed so much in the last 15 years. When I qualified it was mostly obstetrics and gynaecology. But now it’s being used in so many different ways and with high-frequency probes you can produce such beautiful images!
The worst thing about my job is…
Knowing that an ultrasound result will not be good news for the patient. If I could do something else… A sommelier but I don’t think I’ve got the palate for it.
After work… I like to run and as a I get older I’m turning to hiking. In October I’m going to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. It’s the complete opposite of work – outdoors, nature, space and solitude.
