272 - A Day in the Life: Cardiac Sonographer (Nygil Stifter, RDCS)

Nygil Stifter, cardiac sonographer at St. Luke's Hospital, joins Dr. Arnold to give listeners a look into a day in the life of a cardiac sonographer. He shares daily routines, education and training, why heloves working as a cardiac sonographer and so much more. 

If you're interested in a career as a cardiac sonographer at St. Luke's, visit unitypoint.org/careers.

If you have a topic you'd like Dr. Arnold to discuss with a guest on the podcast, shoot us an email at stlukescr@unitypoint.org.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:08

This Live Well talk on a day in the life of a cardiac sonographer. I'm Dr Dustin Arnold, chief Medical Officer at Unipoint Health, st Luke's Hospital. Today's episode is another installment in a series of podcasts where we sit down with team members in various roles at Unipoint Health, cedar Rapids, and get to know them on what they do each day and how they contributed to the team and contributed patient care. Joining me today on this episode is Nigel Stifter, a cardiac sonographer with St Luke's Hospital, to discuss the role of cardiac sonographer and what they do on a daily basis. Nigel, welcome. Thank you. How long we were talking that? You've been here 16, almost 17 years. Yeah, you and I came at the same time. Yes, yes, that's right. We've seen a lot of change, haven't we?

Speaker 2 0:51

We've a lot of change? Yes, we have.

Speaker 1 0:54

But start with tell us what a cardiac sonographer is.

Speaker 2 0:57

So a cardiac sonographer uses ultrasound to look at the heart, to see how the heart's working, looks at valves and checks overall heart function.

Speaker 1 1:10

And that is something that what typical patients would have that sort of test on them.

Speaker 2 1:16

You know, it can be any patient. We can see a patient that's born that day or patient that unlikely could die that day.

Speaker 1 1:23

Okay, Wow, what kind of education got you to this position. What did you?

Speaker 2 1:31

It's actually only a two-year degree and then you do for my schools. It was a seven-month internship.

Speaker 1 1:38

Okay, and you do that internship at a hospital with a.

Speaker 2 1:41

It is a hospital or a clinic type internship?

Speaker 1 1:43

yes, and it's. There's a shortage of cardiac stenographers. There's a big shortage. Yes, yeah, you've been the mainstay here for a long time, but I mean it's. We probably had about a third as many as we could have.

Speaker 2 1:57

Very much so. We need a lot of cardiac stenographers.

Speaker 1 2:00

Well, just walk me through the typical day.

Speaker 2 2:03

We come in during the day and we look up our studies and then we go out and do our studies, come back, put in our report and go out and do more studies. We'll do T's where we look at the heart on the inside by having a patient swallow our transducer, or sometimes we'll look at or fix patients valves by with a mitra valve clip, mitra clip or a TAVR.

Speaker 1 2:40

Which is, we've talked about those with Dr Kettlecamp, which is a transaortic valve replacement. So it's you don't have to have open heart surgery.

Speaker 2 2:50

Very true.

Speaker 1 2:52

Ultrasound continues to grow point of care ultrasounds, and a lot more than it was 10, 15 years ago. What have you seen? The biggest change in the last 15 years.

Speaker 2 3:05

I'd say the image quality is a big change, as well as the color quality.

Speaker 1 3:11

Really yes, Well, you know, it is the practice of medicine. You have to keep up on your skills. What sort of ongoing education does a cardiac stenographer do, so we have to get 30 CMEs every three years.

Speaker 2 3:26

We read articles through the American Society of Echocardiography or go to different meetings and stuff like that to keep up on our growing organization.

Speaker 1 3:41

Well, I can definitely attest to the quality of the study is the skill of the sonographer.

Speaker 2 3:51

As well as the machines. Yes, yeah.

Speaker 1 3:52

I mean, but you and your team, you do a great job. You know I read echoes. Before I came here to see your app I would often read my own or go up and at least look at them and I just phenomenal quality and that's important, because putting a patient through a study, that's not a benefit, you know, that's just not. Why did you choose this? What got you interested in it?

Speaker 2 4:14

I actually had heart surgery at the age of four.

Speaker 1 4:17

Oh man.

Speaker 2 4:17

And then my mother also did ultrasound. She just didn't do hearts.

Speaker 1 4:21

Oh, so she did regular ultrasound Correct and so you had the heart surgery. So that made you kind of think about cardiac sonographer.

Speaker 2 4:29

That is correct. I was born with actually an ASD or an intraceptal defect.

Speaker 1 4:33

Oh, wow, I didn't know that about you. That's very interesting. You know, everybody has something they like most about their job. I said the other day on it, talking to someone they were asking me about, kind of I said you know, the thing I love the most about my job is it's no effort to get along and to like the people I work with. I walk in the building every day and I'm like this is awesome. What do you like about your job? What's the thing you love the most about it?

Speaker 2 5:01

I love the people I work with, as well as the cardiologists. I have to give a big shout out to the cardiologists I work with. I mean they are great at teaching us about the all the different things that change in our work environment.

Speaker 1 5:16

Well and you play, you know key role we should let it be known. You participate in emergent situations too. When they need it, an ultrasound completed at the bedside. We've been in many of those cases together.

Speaker 2 5:30

Absolutely.

Speaker 1 5:31

For perhaps a cardiac sonographer that's listening to this podcast, or someone considering becoming a cardiac sonographer tell why St Luke's.

Speaker 2 5:42

It is a great place to work. Like I said, I've been here 17 years. They have great benefits and, like I said, the cardiologists are great to work with and they're great at teaching us everything we need to know. And you know it's I wouldn't have left. If I would have left, had it and not been such a great organization.

Speaker 1 6:00

Yeah, I've said that I just like the people I work with. You know just period, 100% agree. Yeah, it's effortless. I mean I show up every day and I don't have to put any effort into it, to just enjoy the people I'm around. And everybody's smiling For the most part.

Speaker 2 6:16

Yes.

Speaker 1 6:17

Nigel, thank you for joining me and sharing about a day in the life of a cardiac sonographer. Once again, this was Nigel Sifter, cardiac sonographer with St Luke's Hospital. If you're interested in a career in cardiac sonography or any other role at St Luke's, visit unipointorg backslash careers. Thank you for listening to Live Well Talk On. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to spread the word, please give us a five star review and tell your family, friends, neighbors, strangers about our podcast. We're available on Apple Podcasts, spotify, pandora or wherever you get your podcast. And until next time, be well.