The Oregon Licensure bill defines a diagnostic medical sonographer (be it cardiac, abdominal, OB-GYN, etc.) as “an individual who operates ultrasound equipment for medical imaging purposes.” To obtain a license, the sonographer “must submit evidence of current credentialing in Diagnostic Medical Sonography from the American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonography (ARDMS), American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT), or Cardiac Credentialing International (CCI).” Students in an approved school may apply for a temporary license provided they successfully complete the didactic and clinical pieces of the program. The intent is to allow students to gain additional clinical experience and expertise necessary prior to taking the exam. However, sonographers with temporary licenses must be directly supervised by licensed sonographers or licensed physicians and may practice in only the modality specified on the temporary license. The Oregon bill allows for temporary license renewal should the student fail the credentialing examination, but requires Board approval.

In July 2010, Oregon began implementation of the new licensure law and will require all sonographers to be licensed by 2014. This gradual implementation allows for uncredentialed sonographers currently employed to pass the ARDMS or CCI registry exams. The following are perspectives are from me and two other newly licensed Oregon sonographers.

Perspective 1

Todd Belcik BS, RCS, RDCS, FASE

Personally, I believe sonographer licensure will become the next step in the era of health care reform, as a natural progression. It grants authority (at a state level in Oregon) to monitor those individuals providing medical imaging services and to ensure that they meet the minimum standards of education (National Education Curriculum for Sonography) and credentialing (ARDMS, AART or CCI) for each respective area of imaging. As a result, sonographer employment is based upon state licensure as opposed to credential preference, which is at times is an issue for sonographers who may not have the credential mandated by the institution, even though both ARDSM or CCI for CV imaging is recognized by the ACC and the ASE. The Oregon licensure bill eliminates credential discrimination by employers. Regardless, there is a considerable amount of intellectual knowledge regarding ultrasound physics, cardiovascular physiology, and pathophysiology needed in our daily workloads. Therefore, it is imperative that all sonographers providing patient care be held to minimum standards such as those established in the State of Oregon Medical Imaging Licensure law.

Todd Belcik BS, RCS, RDCS, FASE

Senior Research Associate/Research Sonographer

Oregon Health & Science University