CQUniversity medical sonography students have benefited from a recent workshop conducted by major ultrasound company Sonosite Australasia at the Mackay campus.

The company were able to use the state-of-the-art facilities at CQUniversity in Mackay to train 22 local anaesthetists and doctors in the latest ultrasound techniques.

Sonosite Australasia clinical applications specialist Lynette Hassall demonstrates ultrasound techniques to medical sonography student Amanda MacGill. The session for students was an intensive hands-on ultrasound scanning workshop where the students used the SonoSite ultrasound equipment to scan phantoms (simulated patients) with various pathologies.

This included abdominal aortic aneurysms, undertake ultrasound-guided interventional procedures, and use their image interpretation skills to diagnose a range of pathologies.

Second year medical sonography student Karen Kemp said she gained great experience from the exercise.

"In second year we mainly use diagnostic ultrasound but this was used in emergency department they call point-of-care ultrasound, which basically means using ultrasound to help diagnose critical situations to see if the patient needs to go to the emergency department," she said.

"I gained awareness about different aspects of ultrasound capabilities and the realisation of the difference situations we might find ourselves in."