With growing recognition of the way occupational health and safety physically impacts, how sonographers perform daily tasks, little research pertaining to the emotional challenges and subsequent burnout faced by sonographers on a daily basis has been undertaken. This narrative literature review aims to investigate the incidence and potential causes of burnout amongst sonographers in order to further explore sonographer well-being. A literature search of medical databases and Google scholar was undertaken to identify articles related to the incidence and causes of sonographer burnout. This review revealed that the prevalence of sonographer burnout is high in Australasia and varied across different populations. Many potential causes of burnout have been postulated within the literature including increased scan numbers or work hours per week, working in hospital settings and chronic exposure to emotionally stressful situations. This review revealed that there is a paucity of published research discussing the incidence and causes of sonographer burnout to date. Further research is needed to investigate this very relevant topic.

Although physicians have the primary role of communicating bad news to patients, emergency care personnel, nurses, midwives, and sonographers encounter this situation increasingly in their routine work. There is an inherent expectation that delivering bad news is intuitive and can be developed with experience. Contrary to the belief, there is mounting evidence to suggest that difficult communication is a complex skill, which can be taught. Insufficient or no training is a significant barrier in effective communication and can lead to burnout. The study aimed to identify common barriers of breaking bad news and to determine attributes to overcome them, in allied health, nursing, and sonography literature. A narrative literature review was undertaken. Keywords search of MEDLINE database and manual keyword search of articles published in English was performed. Review methods were data extraction and comparative analysis of 12 published articles. Descriptive analysis of 12 articles revealed three themes of interest: (1) impact of breaking bad news on staff, (2) perceived difficulties/barriers for breaking bad news, and (3) developing attributes that help in communicating bad news. Articles analysed suggest that communicating bad news is a complex skill and indicates an adequate training to empower the informer and to offer better patient care.

Introduction: COVID-19 brought with it the requirement for healthcare workers to limit community transmission of the virus as much as possible by limiting patient contact and wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). This study aimed to capture the initial adaptations to sonographic examination protocols within ultrasound departments and sonographer access to PPE.Methods: An online survey was used to gather data on sonographer reflections of sonographic examination protocol changes seen in their departments and access to PPE between the 11th of March 2020 and the 14th of June 2020. Results:To reduce the time sonographers spent with the patients and hence reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19, sonographers reported adjustments to sonographic examination protocols including their duration and scheduling. Access to PPE was reported as poor. Conclusion:Numerous sonographic examination protocol changes were observed within ultrasound departments in Australasia in the initial response to COVID-19.Access to PPE was varied along with sonographer feelings around the impact of these changes.

Ulnar neuropathy at the elbow (UNE) is the second most frequent peripheral nerve entrapment neuropathy in the upper extremity. The diagnosis is determined through a combination of history, physical examination, and electrodiagnostic testing. However, the use of high-resolution sonography is increasing, with sonographic measurements of ulnar nerve dimension established as a reliable diagnostic criterion for UNE. Sonographic imaging can describe anatomical features beyond ulnar nerve size, and therefore additional observations could potentially be used in UNE diagnosis and treatment follow-up. This review was a scoping of the literature on different sonographic measurements and assessments that have been reported to evaluate the ulnar nerve and cubital tunnel. This should provide a guide to scanning protocols for sonographers.

Background The training of Australian sonographers is shared between accredited course providers and clinical training providers. Scanning skills are mostly developed in a real‐life setting environment by the clinical training provider. Sonographer training is burdensome on clinical training providers due to increasing service delivery demands. Accredited course providers should therefore investigate innovative methods of skill training that can be undertaken outside of the clinical environment. Aims This report evaluates four sonographer skill development activities for novice students that used high fidelity ultrasound simulators. Results All students reported positive experiences and outcomes of simulator based learning activities and believed that simulated skills development sessions help them develop scanning skills. Students perceived their skills level after simulation sessions to be at levels where they could scan in a real clinical setting with supervision levels ranging from moderate to no assistance. Supervisor ratings ranged from students being able to scan with large amounts of assistance to being able to scan with minimal assistance. A self‐directed learning package was introduced which was well received by students. Conclusions The results of the evaluations of the reported simulated learning activities are promising for a self‐directed and student centered learning curriculum to be ‘wrapped’ around the use of high fidelity simulators to develop student skills in the early stages of training.