Camosun College recently opened its doors to a new outpatient clinic offering sonography services for patients in the community. Campus Ultrasound opened in the Alex & Jo Campbell Centre for Health and Wellness on Monday, February 6 after the official opening announcement on Thursday, January 26.
Camosun Diagnostic Medical Sonography program leader Dustin Pendergast says that he and his students are very excited about the opportunity for the hands-on learning now provided on campus at the clinic, the first of its kind in Canada to support on-site learning.
The Sonography program is the first of its kind on the island and welcomed its first six students in May 2020. A clinic on campus has been in the works since the formation of the program.
“So basically, the clinic was a vision that was part of the whole design of the program in the first place,” says Pendergast.
Pendergast believes that the clinic will offer many benefits to the community and will help with wait times for a diagnostic ultrasound.
“Between doing general ultrasound and doing echocardiography, we’re going to be doing 8,000 more patients a year in just in this clinic alone,” says Pendergast. “The other key thing is, it’s in the community. It’s not at an acute care site and closer to where people who live in this area are. So, just another option for people to go to.”
Diagnostic Medical Sonography student Pippa Cilliers will be one of the first students to work in the clinic. While Cilliers and other students have been attending clinicals at hospitals and ultrasound clinics she believes the familiarity of Camosun will be a great place to apply her skills.
“Normally, it’s a little bit daunting going to the hospital at first; I feel more comfortable with it now, but it can be overwhelming,” she says. “I think [Camosun] is this sort of comfortable place that’s familiar, but also where I’ll get to apply all my knowledge. So, that’s really neat.”
Cilliers is happy for an additional location to work on learning her material.
“I think when we heard that they would be opening a clinic up on campus we were basically counting the days until it was open,” she says. “Not to diminish our experience in hospitals and clinics, that’s been amazing too. But, I think it’s just such a special thing to be in one of the first programs to have a clinic on site and to be the first cohort to go through that. It’s pretty unique and exciting to be able to be the first to do that.”
Beyond the opportunity for students, Cilliers believes the clinic will benefit patients because of the thoroughness of the examinations.
“I think it’s going to give a lot of benefits to patients that come to the clinic as well,” she says. “The exam time will be longer, we make sure that they get enough time so that we can learn alongside our preceptors so they can show us in depth what to assess and look for. In doing so, I feel like, in some ways, patients are getting a second pair of eyes on their scan, they’re getting a more in-depth assessment… because they’re teaching us, so they want to show us the best protocol, the best procedures, and the best practices to go by.”