Submit your story...

It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just needs to be authentic.

Stories can be as short as 100-300 words or as long as it takes

Every clinician leaves a trace of the path they’ve walked.

And each step echoes in eternity.

When the Image Finally Made Sense

When I came, I had never performed an ultrasound exam in my life. The machines, the controls, the gray shapes on the screen—they were foreign and far too much to make sense of.

But others I know had done it and others in class were doing it. I looked at the images hard images hard, trying to feel what I was really seeing. Slowly, with practice and guidance, the pieces began to fall into place. The chambers and the valves started to show and I started finding and really seeing a living heart.

By the end of the week something had moved. I came doubting everything and fought frustration but then it fell back and things felt possible. Ultrasound wasn’t magic after all—it was a skill, something that could really be learned a piece at a time.

I left different than when I came, a little lighter. A little excited at what I did, thinking that I could I could walk into a patient’s room, and talk to them, place the probe, and understand what I was looking at.

But thinking back, it was something more. I was going back knowing that it was only my beginning and I was ready to meet it. It wasn't just what I did there... it's who I became.

— Former class participant

Your turn:

We'll let you know that we've posted it for posterity on the Clinician Stories wall. Return to the Clinician Stories page.

Perhaps it it's a moment where your contribution made a decided difference, or a memory of the long silent path you walked. Or a patient or peer story, something you heard in class or at the bedside. They're all inside you.