2025 Technologist Director

Employer: UC Davis Health Vascular Lab / Shingle Springs, CA

Please explain your current employment role/responsibilities:
Interim Radiology multiple modality supervisor at placer center for health. Current Radiology supervisor of the vascular ultrasound UC Davis Health. Involved in training of vascular ultrasound students and residents since 2004 to present; Led abdominal scanning workshop- UC Davis vascular conference 2018; Bi-Annual UC Davis vascular ultrasound conference 2014-2018; Supervisor Training Certificate through UC Davis 2015 AVA screenings: Carotid, AAA and PAD (annual 2004-2007); Healthy aging summit carotid artery screening- March 2003; Eskaton health fair carotid artery screening- January 2003; Vascular Club president 2001-2002.

What is your previous and current involvement with the SVU? 

• I am currently serving a one year term as SVU technical director.
• Poster presentation 2013.
• Journal of Vascular Ultrasound – Venous hypertension in the absence of DVT (published article 2007).
• Journal of Vascular Ultrasound– Cystic Adventitial Disease of the popliteal artery.
• Poster presentation 2006.
• Journal of Vascular Ultrasound– Cystic Adventitial Disease of the popliteal artery.

Please share your passion for/commitment to /experience with vascular ultrasound and how this will be transformative at the Board of Director level:
Thank you for the opportunity to apply for the Technical Director position. I have enjoyed serving on the SVU board and would love the opportunity to continue. I have been a technologist for 20 years and I still get excited when I find something uncommon. I have been extremely blessed to work at a large well-known institution for my entire career. I have gotten to work under some of the best vascular surgeons and interventionalists in the country. We get to see the uncommon and rare because of the status of the institution.

I have also been privileged to be involved in the education of students since 2004. Around the US there are only a handful of facilities with the same type of recognition. Therefore, most facilities aren’t operating at the same level and are doing much simpler and more routine exams, because when things get complicated patients get sent to the larger, more equipped facility. Unfortunately, that means most students that are getting trained are ending up in smaller clinics doing specialized venous procedures and/or limited arterial ultrasounds.

In my current role, as supervisor, most of these technologists don’t have a chance at landing a job at a facility like the one I work for, as they just don’t have enough experience. I think that SVU has the opportunity to help these technologists by creating a pathway for a technologist to obtain more training and education while they are still working. SVU could work with specialized technologists and help them expand their knowledge by creating a more interactive website that offers learning and training videos. They could even offer in-person or online scanning modules that would help technologists gain more knowledge of complicated exams.

Another thing that I see with technologists is that they are very excited when they first graduate. They want to participate in everything, and they soak up new experiences in the field, but as time goes on, they start to feel stuck in their careers. They stop participating in events because they feel like they’ve already accomplished everything they can and they either go back to school for their Masters’ degree typically in Health Administration and/or change their careers altogether.

There are limited opportunities for growth within the vascular ultrasound career and unlike all other modalities in Radiology, the opportunity to cross train is much smaller. SVU could offer cross-training options where technologists could learn the basics of a separate modality, which could help the technologist be more marketable. SVU could offer an avenue for technologists to obtain a type of master’s or nursing degree where technologists could obtain extra certifications to read vascular ultrasound exams, see patients for routine follow ups and provide wound changes.

SVU’s national conference is a great opportunity to help technologists get excited about vascular ultrasound, but I personally can’t remember the last time it was held on the west coast. There are many talented sonographers here on the west coast and I think that joining forces with some of the larger hospitals that are heavily involved in vascular ultrasound, in this area, could be beneficial to increasing the interest and involvement in SVU. SVU has a lot to offer, but needs to stay relevant, affordable and exciting for technologists and surgeons to be actively engaged in.