Frequently Asked Questions
Would you suggest maintaining our membership with CSDMS, CARDUP and ARDMS?
Why is the number of CMEs 15 per year? What was wrong with the 30 over a triennium?
What are the benefits to being self regulated?
What are the cons to being self regulated?
Why does the Legislative committee recommend joining the NSAMRT College?
Why do we have to do this now? Why the urgency?
Can we join the college after the Act has been passed?
What is becoming self regulated going to cost me personally?
How many CME's will I need to keep my license?
What is the committee proposing for the wording of our scope of practice?
Why is the number of CMEs 15 per year? What was wrong with the 30 over a triennium?
Brian Martell has done the research necessary in creating a CME platform from scratch for the NSAMRT. He has found that many other health professions require more CMEs than those of us in the field of ultrasound require. The number 15/year has been arrived at after much consideration and study.
The Continuous Professional Development program requires that each member earn credits in each of 2 categories. The first category "work based learning" pertains more to each person's personal learning needs. The second category pertains more to developing the profession by participating in meetings, such as our own Annual General Meetings, and by helping others learn such as preparing and giving lectures.
The college will accept the same credits that you have earned for CARDUP and ARDMS. It will also accept a broader range of activities for CME such as reading articles. We feel that the increase of 5 more credits/year is reasonable and achievable by all of us.
For more information about the Continous Professional Developement program, see the NSAMRT web site by following the link on the Links page.
Would you suggest maintaining our membership with CSDMS, CARDUP and ARDMS?
The best way to answer this question is to take a look at each one and see what each one provides you.
CARDUP: At this point, the legislation committee is recommending CARDUP as the prerequisite for qualification for your license. This is comparable with NSAMRT requiring that a candidate have their CAMRT. Therefore, you will need your CARDUP.
CSDMS: The CSDMS provides you with CME opportunities. These will be required by the college each year to renew your license. Of course, there are other avenues that you can pursue to acquire your CMEs.
CSDMS also provides personal liability insurance specific to sonographers. You are probably aware that you can be a member of CSDMS but opt out of the insurance and save a considerable amount. If you are a member of CAMRT you are covered under their insurance policy if you are ARDMS registered. The basic membership fee for CSDMS is $136.73. The insurance provided by CSDMS is an extra $155.00. For more information on what the insurance covers, you can visit the CSDMS web site. See the link on the LINKS page of this site.
You are covered by your employer's insurance policy. However, it is our understanding that if you are found to be negligent, the employer can then sue you to recoup their loses. It is therefore highly recommended by the Legislation Committee that make sure you have personal liability insurance.
ARDMS: Some employers in Nova Scotia may require that you have ARDMS as a prerequisite for employment. You will need to check with your employer on this. You could request that this requirement be changed to CARDUP now. After the legislation is passed you would also need your license from the college. At that point, you may check with your employer to see if they still require ARDMS.
Also, ARDMS is recognized throughout the world. If you plan to ever practice outside the province you may need ARDMS.
It will be a personal decision on your part whether you want to maintain your membership with all these registries and societies. However, we highly recommend that you maintain CSDMS with liability insurance. CARDUP will be a requirement.
The membership fees for the college are predicted to be approximately $400 per year. This is on top of all our other fees. Why do they need to be so high?
Part of the fee will go to paying a company yearly to operate the office. They will take care of correspondence, do the mail outs, collect the fees etc.
The second and large portion will go to a fund that we must build to handle the complaint processes. The lawyer has recommended having $200,000 cash in an account for such fees (investigation, lawyer etc). It will take years to get this reserve fund established and we have no way of knowing how much it will cost to handle complaints.
These dues are less than some other regulated professions pay to their colleges. And when you add up our total expenses each year they are comparable to other health professions.
This will be a large increase for sonographers in Nova Scotia, but don't forget that these costs are tax deductable.
What are the benefits to being self regulated?
The first benefit is to the public. If we become self regulated with the NSAMRT then everyone practicing diagnostic sonography in Nova Scoita will need to be licensed. The license will be granted by the college only to those who meet the criteria set out in the regulations of the college. Your legislation committee is recommending that the criteria are CARDUP or ARDMS with CARDUP clinical competency testing.
Another benefit to being a self regulated profession is equal status with other regulated health professions. Sonographers in Nova Scotia have been overlooked as stakeholders for some very important health care decisions in the past. This is not unique to Nova Scotia. Sonographers across Canada have been overlooked on many occasions. For instance, sonographers were not consulted in Ontario when proposed changes to the nurses' scope of practice was to include performing ultrasound. A recent example here in Nova Scotia was failure to include sonography in the proposed Health Information legislation. Other examples exist and perhaps some sonographers remember being misrepresented as to the amount of expertise and education involved with sonography when the Hay Report was released. Sonographers were said to have only one year of training and so the recommendation for our pay was very low compared to radiography.
As a regulated health profession sonography will be regarded in the same light as nursing, respiratory therapy and other health professions when important decisions are being made in health care. Sonographers will be invited to the table as an equal stakeholder when health care decisions are being made.
Self regulation incorporates title protection. This means that only those holding an active license to practice diagnostic ultrasound can declare themselves to the public as a sonographer. Other titles will also be protected such as ultrasound technologist, and diagnostic ultrasound professional.
Practice protection is also incorporated with self regulation. The scope of practice for diagnostic medical sonography will be legislated and no one else can perform our functions. There will however be some exemptions such as those who are "duly qualified medical practitioners under the Medical Act". There may be other exemptions and the legislation committee is investigating who may be declared as exempted. There are always allowances for overlapping scopes of practice in any legislation of this type. We will keep you posted on what exemptions are ultimately determined.
Self regulation will also provide clarity of a number of processes, specifically, licensing criteria including continuing education and patient complaints processes. This process of handling complaints increases public confidence in the profession and its practitioners.
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What are the cons to becoming a self regulated profession?
Once regulated the profession falls under the control of the Department of Health to some extent and also to cabinet which is most always made up of members of the House of Assembly. If, for example, we as a profession felt that we needed to make a change to the regulations of the college, we would need approval of cabinet.
The most important con to becoming self regulated is cost. There are many costs associated with the process. The initial cost of setting up a college is substantial. This involves many hours in lawyers' fees because it is a legal process. Of course, increased numbers reduces the cost. The legislation committee recommends joining the NSAMRT for this and other reasons.
There are also ongoing costs of running a college on a day to day basis. These costs are associated with needing to pay a part time registrar, and operating a "store front". All self regulating health professions need to have an address where a people can call or present themselves in person to get information about the college or to lodge a complaint.
In addition to the initial set up and ongoing running of the college there are unknown and potentially substantial costs to being self regulated. These unknown costs are the costs of resolving complaints. There can be large lawyer fees if a complaint is deemed to be real by the board of the college. These costs can run into tens of thousands of dollars.
Why does the Legislative Committee recommend joining the NSAMRT college?
When your numbers are too small to create your own college, it is very important to consider who you want to
form a college with. The disciplines of radiography, nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance imaging and radiation
therapy share more commonalities with sonography than any other health profession. With the exception of
radiation therapy, we are all mostly grouped together in diagnostic imaging departments and so come under the
same management in our workplace and work with the same physicians.We all face common problems and share the
same unions. NSAMRT are who we are most comfortable with because many of us have come from this background or
are currently working across disciplines in the NSAMRT.
Cost is a major consideration. The number of people practicing diagnostic sonography in Nova Scotia is around 100. When we consider even the initial costs of drawing up a draft of legislation the legal fees are approximately $10,000. Sonographers as group alone cannot bear the cost of initiating and running a college on our own. Joining with the NSAMRT will make the costs bearable because there will be larger numbers to share the costs.
Why do we have to do this now? Why the urgency?
The topic of regulation has been an ongoing concern for sonographers in Nova Scotia and across Canada. We have
all agreed for many years that becoming regulated is important for sonographers. We understand the complexity of
this constantly evolving profession and need for competency in the field. It may seem like this is sudden but it
really has been on our agenda for years. This past year has presented us with a unique and, for many of us, a "once
in a lifetime" opportunity. The NSAMRT has been working on updating the NSAMRT Act for years and is now nearly
ready to proceed to the legislature with the new act. It would have been better and more comfortable for all of
us if we had been involved earlier in the process, but that was not the case. The NSAMRT has agreed to take on
sonography as a new discipline but only if the process does not delay their aim to be on the agenda for the
sitting of the legislature. If we miss this opportunity, it will be a long time before the NSAMRT have need to
change the Act again.
Can we join the college after the Act has been passed?
Yes we can, however, this is not without its own set of problems. First, the NSAMRT would need to approve adding sonography as a discipline. This would require more legal fees and cabinet approval. This would amount to nearly the same cost as the initial costs of drawing up the draft legislation. We, as a group, could possibly shoulder these costs. However, Marjorie Hickey, the lawyer who is working with the NSAMRT on this project advises against joining after the Act is passed by the legislature. We, as the legislative committee, cannot disagree with this advice.
What is becoming self regulated going to cost me personally?
The cost of dues in this college is estimated to be approximately $400 annually. Keep in mind that this is just an estimation. The cost could be more. This is in addition to maintaining registry with CARDUP, ARDMS and we highly recommend maintaining membership with the CSDMS for your own personal liability insurance. The college will not provide liability insurance, it will only grant you a licence to work in Nova Scotia.
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How many CME's will I need to keep my license?
The NSAMRT are proposing 15 CMEs per years. The professional development aspect of a self regulated profession is very important. We need to have a strong plan in place to show that we are devoted to lifelong learning. CMEs will be granted for many and varied activities.
There are 2 categories of credits - continuing education and professional development. Credits need to be earned from both categories. The difference between the categories is that continuing education is a personal learning event such as reading an article from a professional journal. Professional development is an activity that promotes the profession such as giving a lecture or attending Annual General Meetings of the college.
What is the committee proposing for the wording of our scope of practice?
The committee proposes the following:
Diagnostic Ultrasound Technology means:
- The examination of patients using high frequency sound waves and the production of diagnostic images
- The application of knowledge of anatomy, anatomic variants, physiology and pathophysiology in the evaluation and interpretation of diagnostic images to distinguish normal and abnormal findings specific to pathological processes during ultrasound examinations
- The application of ultrasound physics to distinguish artifact from pathological process during ultrasound examinations
- The communication of sonographic findings to the reporting physician
- The application of ultrasound field safety in the protection of patients
- The provision of care to patients during ultrasound examinations
- The education of patients regarding sonography
- Such other practices and procedures within the scope of practice of diagnostic ultrasound technology as taught in diagnostic ultrasound technology education programs