Hi everyone. Technically I'm a student, training to be an ultrasound tech, but I'm doing clinical rotations right now, so it feels more like being at a workplace. The Work and Career section seemed more appropriate for this post than the School section.

Anyway, my first year was on campus, and I spent SO much time practicing scanning in our ultrasound lab there, way more than any of my classmates. This year we're doing our clinical rotations, and due to chance I am the ONLY student who isn't getting good experience. I'm supposed to be training for 3 ultrasound concentrations - abdominal, OBGYN, and arteries/veins - but I only have a clinical sites for 2 of my 3 concentrations. PLUS, one of those sites isn't very busy, so I spend a lot of time just sitting around. I'm worried that I won't have enough experience or the necessary variety of experience and will therefore have trouble getting a job. A lot of people think anyone can do ultrasound, but it truly takes some intensive training. To get a job you have to prove your skills, and those skills are much harder to develop than you might think. I hope I don't sound all high and mighty, but it's true.

Before anyone makes suggestions of how I can find another clinical site that concentrates on the experience I'm lacking, please know that there is literally nothing I can do. My clinical coordinator takes care of all that, and we've been explicitly told that as students we're prohibited from contacting sites. Ironically, the reason I'm in this situation is because my clinical coordinator did not communicate well with potential sites and therefore drove them away. Needless to say, I am not very happy with her.

I feel like I have gone from the top of my class to the bottom. I don't need to be the best, but after working so hard in my first year, this situation is very depressing for me. My education has always been a huge priority in my life, and now no matter how hard I work, I'll have less experience than ALL of my classmates when we graduate.

I'm an extremely anxious person and a pessimist. I know most of the things I worry about don't come true, so I'm trying to be positive. I've been telling myself that I WILL get a job and will just have to catch up in my first few months, and that even if it's harder for me at first in a few years it will all be water under the bridge. The only part I'm really having trouble convincing myself of is that I will in fact get a job. :/ The longer I'm unemployed, the more out of practice I will be, and therefore the less likely I will be to get a job.

In addition to all this, I made a bad impression on one of my clinical sites, and I have been putting myself down a lot for the past few months because of it. I think they have warmed up to me more and I know everyone makes mistakes, but I keep telling myself that I'm an idiot, that I'm a bad person, that no one likes me and for good reason, etc. I'm also worried that I will make similar mistakes again and turn people against me at future workplaces.

I really love ultrasound, but this whole clinical year is proving to be an emotional roller coaster and I can't wait for it to be over. Fortunately I graduate in May - so close, yet so far.

[Little Lulu]

Maybe the quality person you are and your passion for your work will be the things that ultimately get you a job rather than any particular piece of training you did or didn't get. I would rather hire someone I thought was a hard-working, good person and train them than someone who didn't seem decent but had good skills. Skills can always be taught ... good character can't.

[Perna]

I don't think you can know how the other students are doing in their rotations. You can't know if their places have more/less work or if their supervisors there let them get good experience or just "watch", whether they have 2 or 3 sites, etc. Don't forget your not very good clinical coordinator isn't just coordinating you, other students have her too.

If the other students were not too keen in their first year as you, they aren't suddenly going to be keen to get experience, they're going to be the same people they were first year and probably do the "minimum". It's our interior dialog and drive that gets us where we are trying to go, not a paint-by-number amount of experience? You are interested in the subject and doing the job and that will show in interviews. No job expects a new person, especially one who was just a student, to be an expert the first week of the job :-) I would relax some from the worries of what's to come in the summer and concentrate now on interpersonal skills with the people you are working with now and interior dialog, giving yourself a break. You're doing the best you can. It is all important in a job, not just the technical stuff.

Perna, my program is very small (7 people) and we all still keep in touch, so I actually do know what others are experiencing at their clinical rotations. :/ Though you'd think a crappy clinical coordinator would affect multiple students, it was just unfortunate circumstances that led to me being the only one who got screwed over.

Anyway, I think you guys are right that I need to focus on the fact that my enthusiasm will show and hopefully make an impression when I apply for jobs.

I always expect things to be worse than they actually will be. I try to keep that in mind, but it's hard to break pessimistic habits that are so ingrained. It helps to have people (you guys) point out that I'm over thinking though. I actually only found out for sure a couple weeks ago that my clinical situation was not ideal, so now that some time has passed and the initial "shock" is gone, I'm feeling a little better. I'm still having bad moments like when I posted this thread last night, but it helps a lot to get things off my chest. Thanks for reading and for your kind words.

[mcl6136]

Hi DWW,

You hinted that you often find yourself thinking "too much" or forecasting that things will work out worse than they do in fact....

I've found the Cognitive Distortions fact sheet that's linked to the Psychotherapy forum to be a very very good review.

I still have these ingrained habits and probably always will, but I can now catch myself in these patterns and it definitely helps to keep me out of free fall!