The Technical Medicine programme at the University of Twente offers a free online course starting 5 October: “Ultrasound Imaging: What is inside?” The course explains the technology of ultrasound, how it is used in a medical environment and how an understanding of the underlying technology will help improve patient care. "Ultrasound is used by many different medical professionals. The become even more valuable if they understand the technology behind the device," explains Wiendelt Steenbergen, Professor in Biomedical Photonic Imaging at the UT and senior lecturer of the course.
Image of the body
Ultrasound uses sound with an extremely high frequency. You are not able to hear this sound. It penetrates the soft tissues well and is reflected by transitions to harder tissues, such as bone tissue. By collecting the reflected ultrasound an image of what is going on inside the body can be created.
Medical applications
Everyone knows the ultrasound images made during pregnancies, but there are many more medical applications for ultrasounds in addition to obstetrics. Examples include physical therapy, radiology, situations in which doctors want to have a general impression of the patient in intensive care and to support vascular surgery. For example, a vascular surgeon would like to know whether there are vascular constrictions present in the patient. In these cases, ultrasound can be used to discover this, especially if it is preferable to using, for example, an X-ray machine with radioactive contamination.
The course has been developed in collaboration with various hospitals and medical practices: MST Enschede, Rijnstate in Arnhem, Radboud UMC in Nijmegen, Echotoon verloskunde in Groningen and Fysiotherapiepraktijk Topvorm (physiotherapy practice) in Enschede. Participants will, on the basis of patient cases from medical practice, see that technological knowledge is required to make the best use of ultrasound imaging.
Target group
The course will start on 5 October, lasts six weeks, requires about three hours a week of study time and is free for anyone who wants to take it. Everyone can participate, but the course assumes a university preparatory education level of mathematics and physics. "We already have several thousands of registrations and this number keeps growing. Amongst those interested are members of medical professional groups, students and, in the Netherlands, university preparatory education pupils. We believe that the latter see it as a test for studying Technical Medicine, or want to use the course for their school cluster project," explains Ineke ten Dam, project leader of the online course.
University of Twente goals
The University of Twente is planning more free online courses, also called MOOCs. According to rector Ed Brinksma, the UT's goals with MOOCs are threefold: "One: exposure. People elsewhere in the world can get a glimpse of the field in which the UT offers education. At the UT, "Health" is a fast-growing field and already about a third of research and education performed at the UT is health related, in most cases from a technological perspective. It therefore seemed obvious to choose something health related for the first MOOC. In addition, the UT wants to gain experience in online education to large amounts of students. The course has to be designed in such a way that it can be studied independently and requires little to no supervision. Finally, MOOCs also contain a lot of material that can also be useful in regular education. For the UT, MOOCs are a logical step to take in the digitizing of education, with distance learning, blended learning and the flipped classroom."
Technical Medicine
The MOOC will be organized by the Technical Medicine programme of the University of Twente. This degree programme trains medical professionals who will be able to employ in-depth knowledge of technology and medical science to improve patient care. The Technical Medicine programme was established in 2003 and has by now led to an entirely new medical profession, listed in the Dutch BIG register for medical professions. Technical medical practitioners have proven themselves in practice and the job prospects of graduates are more than ample.
Read more about the online course Ultrasound imaging: What Is Inside? and register.
Read more about the Technical Medicine programme in Twente here.
