Ultrasound for radiographers has faced several challenges in Portugal and is still seen as a very “grey” area for students, teachers, and professionals. In this chapter, the authors intend to make a brief overview of the history of ultrasound as well as its path in Portugal. There will be made a contextualization of the educational and professional framework, addressing the radiographers' possibilities and future challenges. It will be also highlighted the actual Radiographers role in ultrasound and will be made some suggestions of improvement to the future of this technique and the possible bridges between teaching and professional practice.
TopBrief History Of Ultrasound And Its Evolution To The Present
As in all the great discoveries of the century, these have a distant origin, complementing discoveries made over time and culminating in their concrete application in real context, for the benefit of the population. It would be inappropriate to begin this chapter without mentioning some of the great scientists of the 19th and 20th century whose discoveries made their contribution to today’s modern ultrasound equipment (Campbell, 2013).
In the case of Ultrasound, it can be said that its first precursor was the physiologist Lazaro Spanllazani (Tsung, 2011), who, in 1794, deduced that the orientation of bats inside caves would be done through ultrasounds emitted by them and whose reflection (echo) would give them a sense of space, even though they cannot see in the dark. In 1826, another physicist Jean Daniel Colladon used the “underwater bell” (the precursor of the ultrasound transducer) to prove that sound travels faster in water rather than in air (Tsung, 2011). Almost 20 years later, Christian Doppler in 1842 described what we know as the “Doppler Effect”1 regarding the motion of the stars. This principle was widely used afterwards in ultrasonography, to be able to measure the direction and intensity of blood flow within our body (Campbell, 2013). In 1880 a great step was taken through Pierre and Marie Curie with the discovery of the piezoelectric effect (Curie & Curie, 1890), which is the property of certain crystals to contract and dilate when stimulated by an electric current, producing mechanical/ultrasound waves (Gibbs, Cole & Sassano, 2009). From then on, it was only in the 20th century, with the “impulse” of the world wars, that more decisive and significant evolutions took place in this matter.
From then until today, ultrasound has undergone a fantastic evolution. In the mid-1950s, there were already more than 6000 articles describing the use of ultrasound in the most varied fields (Woo, 2006). The transducers were progressively improved with the advent of technology and microprocessors, making it possible to produce smaller and portable equipment at increasingly affordable prices. This contributed to ultrasound becoming more and more a multidisciplinary technique, with various medical specialties and other health professions, such as radiographers/sonographers, making use of it in each of their areas of expertise, although the levels of differentiation vary from country to country (Santos, Paulo, Bento & Gomes, 2013).