To wonder why some sonographers are so tactless?

[nosexpleaseimpregnant]

I've been mulling this over for the past couple of weeks now and I was just wondering if anybody else has had a bad experience when having a scan?
Almost 2 weeks ago we went for the dating scan, booked by the antenatal team based on dates from an early pegnancy scan. Whilst me and OH were quite happy/excited to see what we have made the sonographer started mumbling that baby seemed small and she couldn't make it more than 11 weeks. She turned to us and said 'baby's a bit small. Did you consent to the downs screening?'. At which point me and OH looked at each other with a WTF? look. She merrily returned to scanning my stomach and OH blurted out....'Is there something wrong?' to which she said 'No I was just making sure you had handed the form in'
She asked me to go out and drink some more water to see if she could improve the scan and then, whilst sitting staring at my drink thinking the worst she came out and said 'ok I figured it out. The early pregnancy scan showed you were 5w+ 6 days. We've documented it as 6w+ 5 days. Panic over. But you'll need to come back next week as you are only 11w+0'
I didn't know whether I was more relieved or pissed off at the general lack of consideration shown to us in the first place!!
Any other bad experiences out there?

Agreed. Just awful. I can't imagine any situation where anybody with any compassion would not just have got on with it and carried out the scan as quickly as possible. :(

Very interesting. All you're doing, in your "defence" of your profession, is proving everyone who claimed that the person doing their scan had an attitude, completely right. We are right, the patient is wrong, end of story. Very neat.

My experience was just one of unpleasantness, I was just made to feel a bit shit. I can live with that. The woman who did my scan when I had my mmc wasn't a sonographer and she was ok, fairly business like but ok. But nothing I experienced really upset me. Some people here have had upsetting experiences.

Therefore, I find your statement about competitive bad scans extremely offensive and I hope to God that you treat your patients better than that. Otherwise, is it any wonder people are pissed off?

MrsDV :( How utterly fucking awful

Toomanyopinions - I can't see how nosexplease's post could have identified anyone!

The fact is that some people don't have empathy, and they don't know they don't. They honestly believe that anyone who is upset by what they say is "over-reacting" or "over-sensitive" or "over-emotional".

It was more the breezy manner it which it all came out then what she actually said.

I haven't read all of this, I don't have time.

But you have to consider that if they work a 8 hour day, knock out an hour for lunch, 30 mins for each appt then they prob scan 12-14 people per day. For argument sake 13. That's 65 patients a week, 260 per month and over 2500 per year.

Of course their manner is breezy they see it thousands of times per year!!!!! It's impossible not to get a little breezy once you've been doing a job so long.

The sonographer noted a potential problem, then found out what it was and reassured you. At least she knows what she's doing by the sound of it. She was not rude or unkind to you.....! Did you want her to weep with emotion with you at the sight of your unborn child. Again of course their breezy about it: it's you baby they don't actually care about it, it's a job!

That's not good enough. I deal with over 3,000 customers a year and I work in an area where you're dealing with a lot of emotion (not medical) and have to tread carefully. If I talked to them the way I've been spoken to, a whole heap of crap would come down on me. It's called being professional and customer care or whatever you want to call it is part of the job.

Gwendoline: read the OP's post. Nothing that was said to the OP was rude or insensitive. I honestly don't see a problem.

A1980

I was a sonographer and can answer the OP's question of WHY ARE SOME SO TACTLESS and correct your stats

I left because we were increasing the expertise and remit of each scan. From when I was first employed the scan length & detail increased. We also started nuchal scans and early pregnancy scans became far more common. We used to scan most women once or twice in preg but by the time I left it was 4 or 5 times.

Scan duration increased from 15 mins to 25mins and required huge concentration

Patient expectation increased and instead of images and sexing being an additional bonus they became a focus with spectators joining the scan promising to be quiet but invariably unable to supress their excitement or phone from ringing or small children from spilling crisps and drinks.... (Just imagine doing this in your CT scan for advanced cancer - the level of skill and accuracy involved is exactly the same)

RSI is a massive massive issue in sonography caused by prolonged scanning and obesity. Obesity is on the increase. Obesity makes the image difficult to interpret (prolonging scan time) and causes extra strain on the arm because of the back pressure of trying to get through the tissue

We scanned 10 scans in the morning and afternoon - 20 in a day. When I left I was commonly coming into a list which was double booked in slots. I did 28 one day. Despite pointing out that I cannot actually do 2 women at the same time they were still booked in. Thus I was rushed. From when I started work until I left the workload changed drastically. The staffing level didn't. EVERY single staff member carried an RSI. Two had an operations.

I used to love interacting with patients. I used to pride myself on giving the sort of attentive care in difficult moments that meant patients came up to me in the street for a hug

I left when I could no longer give this care because I was too fucking knacked, too busy and in pain. The profession is in crisis.

I used to really devote myself to thinking of my patient and often shut the door and have a cry after giving out bad news. It's not that I didn't care. I did.

The day I started feeling blase about it I left.

Many can't because they are trapped by needing work. The working conditions were dire when I left

Having said all that some of the comments further up thread made me gasp because quite frankly those sonogs lack people skills in the first place.

There is also the issue that patients remember things differently. (A sort of don't shoot the messenger situation?)

I am really sad about the change in my profession. It's bad for patients and bad for staff

Toothbrush: Goodness so it's far more per day etc! It was only a rough guess at how many they see.

I would boot all those extra people out the door: it's should be mum and one other person only. People complain and complain about the professionals but often patients behaviour leaves alot to be desired.

I'm well aware RSI is a problem for you as a personal injury lawyer .

When had a scan done she had one hand on me, one on the controls and I can't imagine doing that day in day out.

Oh and is true: she told me that vegetarians are harder to scan and get a cleare picture as the composition of fat is different....?!

Oh and when I had my scan done she did just say to me straight up: your ovaries are polycystic.

Fine. I would hardly expect her to cry for me and I was pleased to finally have a diagnosis.

Vegetarians are more likely to have bowels preventing good views due to fibre but fat composition is no different as far as I know

Good experienced sonogs are leaving the profession because of RSI (I'm not just saying that because of my own situation) and they cannot recruit because there are other easier professions paying same wage. Consequently the newer sonogs lack experience. Existing sonogs are overworked because of the recruitment issues. They are also breaking up the profession to try and fill the recruitment void and parceling out bits of the job to staff with different qualifications. This is based on need rather than a desirable situation

YANBU. I had a rotten 13 week scan. The sonographer called my name, then disappeared without bothering to wait for us. I wasn't about to look in the rooms for him as women were having scans so we just stood in the corridor till a came back a couple of minutes later in a bit of a mood, muttering as we were holding him up!! He never introduced himself. He took me into a room, took blood and weighed, me and took my height, with no explanation of what he was doing or why. He ought to have got my consent as the Trust were doing a research project. I ended up signing it afterwards. He barked a question at me about how I got pregnant, IVF or spontaneous, I tried to be lighthearted and said at my age (43) nothing spontaneous about it and he barked at me again 'what? it was IVF?' and I said no, sorry, it was spontaneous, just being lighthearted.

When doing the scan, he was umming and ahhing and grunting and tutting so much I was convinced something was wrong. The more senior person there had to tell him to stop making so much noise and get on with taking measurements.

I've worked in the NHS myself a long time. I should have said what I was thinking which was that I felt like a piece of meat. This is my second baby so I had an idea what I'd like to expect - courteous staff please, with some sensitivity about the task in hand.

I note the comments from Activate, and don't agree. If you are working in healthcare and dealing with patients then you should be able to do your job with a tact and sensitivity. It may be something the sonograher does day in day out. They forget that that its a big deal to the prospective parents who are nervous about what they will or will not find. Nobody goes to these things just wanting the bloody picture, which you can never make head nor tail of anyway.

I complained and had a good chat with the head of department who agreed that it was no way to treat patients and that this particular person had no insight into his behaviour. i had a much better experience the next time.

I hope you have a better experience next time too OP and good luck.

Interesting posts Toothbrush. It does sound pretty shitty and probably explains why the obnoxious so and so I mentioned previously is listed as working in a swish private clinic as well as the hospital

I don't doubt as well that some people need a good kick up the arse as far as their behaviour is concerned. I changed an appt because I had no childcare for DD. In a fit I wouldn't have taken her in with me. I had a row on another forum this week because some silly mare couldn't see anything wrong with breezing into the room and asking that the first thing to be checked was the sex

Mrs DV that is unimaginably horrendous. My heart goes out to you.

I was a highly specialised sonog and had spent years becoming both experienced and good at my job (I apologise for being conceited)

It was tough to walk away from that career. You cannot really port those skills elsewhere. Returning to whatever career you developed your sonography career from seems like a backward move and is often blocked by the hosp because they cannot afford to lose sonogs. So many are trapped. Others are new and giving bad news is a task which requires experience to get it right. Throw in the overwork and lack of support from management who are terrified of acknowledging the issues because they have no answers to them and it makes for a miserable staff.

My old workplace is on the verge of withdrawing the nuchal screening service because of staffing issues. This is not a little hospital but a huge hospital providing a screening service to a really large area. RSI, increasing weight of patients*, shortage of staff means it may get the chop to save the rest of the screening service

• the population as a whole is getting fatter. It's neither criticism nor comment, just a fact. Bariatric health is now a speciality on its own. No one had heard of this word ten years ago

I would hope that regardless of everything I've just written I would never ever have been like the staff member described by Mrs DV. I left because I could not be attentive, empathetic and caring. That staff member was heartless

And now I feel guilty because I'm fat

Seriously though, thank you for the insight and presenting the other side. Just shows, you might think you know what goes on in people's jobs but you never do.

Toothbrush I'll bet you noticed a staggering increase in the number of high risk patients. In my line of work (NHS) there has been an increase in diabetic patients from 10% to 80+% in the last ten years.

It's a balancing act to do all the check up, re-assure the patient, make sense of the results, document it ("Oh do you have to write it all down?" they ask. Yes).Then explain it all to the patient in language which is not all medical jargon but not belittling.

When I had my DC1 , who is now 11 yo the sonographer asked me to bear with her while she did all the measurements, then she would let us see the screen and answer any questions. So we knew what to expect and not be all "Is it okay,What's wrong.What aren't you telling us" . Our DS was playing silly devils and hiding his bits and pieces. Must blame my vegetarian fat deposits rather than my little boy

Gwendoline I am 3 stone heavier than pre preg :)

It is a fact presented with no intention of dishing blame although I do think as a contributing factor it can't be ignored iyswim

Yes LOTF

mrsDV I have shed many tears over your lovely DD, but that story has made me really angry as well.
How could anybody be so cold and so unfeeling. It is astounding and frightening.
I know a the NHS is struggling, and I know it is still a brilliant institution and we are so lucky to have it, but really, some of the staff should not be allowed to clean the loos, let alone speak to or treat people at their most vulnerable. Shocking :(

Not as bad as my last pg. I had an early scan when I should have been 6 weeks+, and they said baby couldn't be more than 4wks, as no hb. I KNEW exactly when I fell pg as I was recovering from pneumonia, and had only done it once in the previous 3 months! Went back when should have been 8wks, sonographer said I couldn't be more than 5+6 as no hb seen, and told me pg 'wasn't viable, and I would probably mc. Sonographer then told meagain it wasn't a viable pg, and that I WOULD miscarry. She got the doctor and doc asked if I would like tablets to 'help mc along'.

I refused, I felt pg, and felt sure sonographer and doc were wrong. I went back when I should have been 12 weeks - lo, and behold, there was a hb, and a baby that was measuring 12 wks. That is now DS3, an almost 7 month old baby snoring in his cot. That I might have aborted if I had listened to the sonographer and Doctor.

Sonographers are the most unempathetic medical professionals I have ever come across.