Former veterinary nurse Karen Kemp says she's happy to be at Mackay Campus with the pioneering cohort of CQUniversity students enrolled in Medical Sonography, the first program of its type in Australia to be available for undergraduate entry.

"We were always going to be the guinea pigs but overall it's living up to my expectations and I feel the organisers have done an amazing job," she said.

Karen Kemp - enjoying her new career path in sonography

Karen should have some idea about the potential for medical programs, since she's sampled a range of them and worked as veterinary nurse for 10 years.

She started out based in Brisbane in a large general practice with small animals. Her next job was with veterinary specialists in the internal medicine, surgical, cardiology, dermatology and oncology areas. Karen obtained her Vet Nurse qualifications through TAFE but also pursued a special interest in emergency and critical care. She had the opportunity to spend a week at America's Davis University ICU and attended an international emergency and critical care symposium.

Karen became nursing manager of a pet intensive care unit in 2007 and obtained her Diploma in Veterinary Nursing before changing course as project manager for a veterinary practice management software/hardware company. After this phase, she returned to the veterinary specialist firm as ICU manager and nurse training facilitator and enrolled to study Applied Science (Biotechnology) at QUT to obtain a score high enough for Radiography.

Karen already had existing knowledge of the imaging area - having working in a veterinary hospital with digital x-ray, ultrasound, MRI and CT.

"I had dabbled in the idea to pursue a career in sonography for a little while," she said.

"I started at QUT in science to obtain a score that would get me into Radiography. I knew then I had to complete the three year degree, then have at least two years of clinical experience before I could apply for a postgraduate degree in medical sonography.

"I was also told that this was difficult to get into as I needed to find a mentor that was willing to take me on as a student sonographer before QUT would except me in the postgrad course. As a mature-age student, this was looking to be a long haul to get to the end of the tunnel."

Karen says her decision to pursue Sonography at CQUniversity Mackay came quite suddenly after reading about the new program at 2 o'clock one morning.

"I woke the other half when going to bed to tell him my good idea," she said.

Karen says her partner moved to Mackay to gauge career opportunities and a cascade of events took place in quick succession, including a pre-booked Canadian holiday, the Brisbane floods, selling the Brisbane house and moving to Mackay as a family.