Meeting & Agendas

Each attendee introduced themselves and their affiliation (place of employment) with the Program.

Remarks: College has completed the regional accreditation process with SACS and is awaiting report. Initial reports are positive. Budget requests are being sought for this fiscal year. Drug screening policy is now in place for all new Health Sciences Applicants.

Remarks: The self study for renewal of programmatic accreditation has been submitted to JRC-DMS. We were hoping for a spring site visit but probably won’t happen until the summer. Site Visitors will ask to visit your facilities and with the Medical Advisor; all visits will be coordinated with you prior to their visit.

Remarks: Attrition is still a major threat to the program. Many students drop the program because they receive full time employment with the promise of on the job training in vascular. Additionally, ARDMS does not require formal education to take the Vascular registry if they are already credentialed in General or Cardiac ultrasound, and students are unable to receive financial aid for this additional semester. We are currently looking at curriculum changes, i.e., changing from an Enhanced Skills certificate to the Advanced Technical certificate which will allow an increase in credit hours, more time for each modality and financial aid assistance to the student. The Advanced Technical certificate would extend two semesters post AAS Program graduation. • A comment was made about the possibility of adding a vascular component to the current DCS/DMS programs instead of changes being made to the curriculum for the additional semester for the Technical Certificate. • Eileen Klein stated that we could entertain that idea but that she would need a Program Assessment form and a curricular assessment. • She also commented that 72 credit hours is the max allowed for a “Workforce Based Associates Degree Plan Program” and that both the DCS and DMS programs were currently at max. She also questioned whether future legislation could possibly decrease that amount even further.

Remarks: The class graduating in December 2012 completed with 100% pass rate on the registry exam. Three are continuing in the Vascular Program. Three are employed as PRN sonographers in area facilities. Suggestions taken from the Clinical Instructors Workshop held in November are currently being piloted: • A change in the grading rubric for the Challenge evaluation will be sent to each instructor for a test run. Following feedback from CI’s and if all goes well, this new tool can be instituted for the summer semester. • Circuit training echocardiography to increase the speed in which students obtain and acquire images will be attempted in the summer semester. It is felt the students are not yet comfortable enough with basic imaging to attempt this training at this time.

Remarks: • Helen Fowler, RDCS remarked that students should be allowed to perform the protocol taught at ACC. She finds they are much faster than when trying to perform a protocol they are less familiar with. Lynda Jordan, RCS agrees. Comments about ICAEL accreditation and following the same protocol were offered. Dr. Szczytowski asked how many facilities were actually accredited at this time and a poll was taken. While many are in the process, only the central office of CVIC @ St. David’s is currently accredited. Students following “the ACC protocol” may not be an issue and the suggestion was appreciated. • Jennifer Reinhardt, RDCS remarked that the time factor related to student imaging was less about the protocol and more about the students’ inability to quickly assess what maneuvers to perform and/or equipment adjustments to make. While all admitted this is a learning curve, Jennifer felt the circuit training exercises would assist them in performing these maneuvers quicker. The program has agreed to give it a try in the summer semester. • Joel Weiss, RDCS, RDMS, RVT remarked that students need more instruction on verbalizing what they see on echo images. He stated that students lacked confidence in even offering opinions about what is seen even if it is incorrect, limiting educational opportunities. Discussion about improving the critical thinking skills as it relates to the echocardiogram, clinical instructor-student interaction, as well as student-physician interactions were discussed. The program has offered to review the curriculum for methods to increase critical thinking and confidence in students prior to attending the clinical setting.

SWOT Analysis conducted with all in attendance Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats to the Cardiac Sonography Program were assessed. Results to follow.

Meeting adjourned.