Echo Academy: Echocardiography Certificate
Expand your skills, advance your career, and boost your earning potential with USF’s Echo Academy. Our flexible certificate program was designed for working sonographers like you!
Why Earn a Certificate in Echocardiography?
Demand for diagnostic medical sonographers continues to increase, and one of the fastest-growing speciality areas within sonography is echocardiography. With specialized training in imaging specifically geared toward diagnosing heart problems, cardiac sonographers are especially high in demand in Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio.
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Request InformationCareer Outlook & Success
$70,870
Median salary for diagnostic medical sonographers in Indiana (BLS.gov, 2021)
9%
Increase in salary for echocardiographers in past five years (Zippia, 2023)
14%
growth in demand for echocardiographers in the U.S. through 2028 (Zippia, 2023)
Why Echo Academy at USF?
The University of Saint Francis has a long tradition of providing an outstanding health sciences education, and we continue to enhance and expand our offerings as needs in the community arise.
Echo Academy Highlights
USF’s Echo Academy was designed with working sonographers in mind:
- Online coursework
- Evening lab classes
- Paid internship opportunities
- Small class sizes
Sample Timeline
- Semesters 1 and 2
- Classes & Labs – online courses, completed on your own time; and on-site, evening labs
- Semesters 3 and 4
- Clinical Internship with Parkview Health, Lutheran Health, Franciscan Health, or another location
Our Faculty & Facilities
As an Echo Academy student, you’ll learn from experienced sonographers and healthcare practitioners who work in a variety of settings from hospitals to outpatient clinics.
Your hands-on lab classes will be held on site at our partner locations, including Parkview, as well as USF campus locations. Our professionally designed learning spaces feature top-of-the-line equipment, including Philips Epiq ultrasound machines.
Getting Started: Considering a Career in Sonography?
Our Echo Academy is intended for professionals already working as sonographers. If you landed on this page looking for information on how to become a sonographer, you might be interested to know that the University of Saint Francis offers a hybrid associate degree in diagnostic medical sonography.
Learn more about that program here.
Cardiac Sonographer Careers: Jobs in Echocardiography
Diagnostic medical sonographers with additional training in echocardiography will find plenty of career opportunities. Job titles you might see advertised for positions requiring echocardiography experience include:
- Echocardiography Technician
- Echocardiography Technologist
- Echocardiographer
- Echo Lab Technologist
- Echo Technician/Echo Tech
- Cardiac Sonographer
- Cardiovascular Ultrasound Tech
- Echocardiography Imaging Specialist
- Echocardiography Sonographer
- Medical Instrument Technician – Echocardiography
Additional professional experience as a cardiac sonographer could also lead to team lead and other supervisory roles within a healthcare organization.
“Earning your Echo credentials at USF allows you to increase your skillset in a values-driven learning environment, making you significantly more valuable to employers.”
Audra Koldyke
Echocardiography Academy Program Director
Employers: Where You’ll Find USF Graduates
As a leading provider of health sciences education, we see our alumni providing ethical, compassionate care across the Fort Wayne region and beyond. More specifically, graduates of our various imaging programs have started careers at places such as:
- Adams Memorial Hospital
- Direct Care Imaging
- Franciscan Health Network
- The Imaging Center
- Lutheran Hospital Medical Imaging
- Mercy Health Ohio
- Parkview Health
- Parkview Heart Institute
- VA Northern Indiana Health Care System
“When a resume from a University of Saint Francis graduate comes in, it goes to the top of the pile for an interview.”
Erin LaCross MSN ’09
Senior Vice President, Parkview Health
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