Mrs Mari Wester

I would very much like the opportunity to support BMUS members with guidance for patient safety, QA and protecting equipment, both physically and from cyber attacks.
Prevention of damage to probes is increasingly important with ever-decreasing equipment budgets, and education seems to be the way forward. Likewise, providing guidance on the threshold for the need for replacement of equipment, I feel, is in need of review in this new financial climate and technological improvements. I would like to be part of that conversation for patient safety reasons, legal protection of BMUS members and for helping to give weight to business cases to replace equipment.
I also want to liaise with ultrasound manufacturers to ensure that factory presets delivered in the UK all comply with BMUS guidelines for MI and TI, rather than less stringent international guidance.
I would like to use my wide experience of the ultrasound world to help BMUS.

None

Since graduating in Physics in 1992, my whole career, apart from an 18 month jump into secondary school teaching, has been spent in medical ultrasound, I feel that I have a lot to give the BMUS council from my career working in many areas of this field.

In 2023 I began changing over from clinical ultrasound to medical physics, where I have rolled out weekly basic local QA testing, annual QA testing and probe fragility awareness training. I have seen how departments struggle with ever increasing workloads and I have devised minimal test protocols that fit into a working week. I have improved our annual QA testing and developed close relationships with other departments and companies. 

I am also working closely with our IT department and an international cybersecurity company to set guidelines for users of medical equipment to protect patient information and vulnerable ageing machines. 
To tie in with this I am currently learning about ultrasound equipment/service contract procurement to try to provide guidance to ultrasound users and the levels of service they should expect, to keep up to date with emerging risks.

As a member of an ultrasound special interest group in IPEM to stay up to date with current advances and issues from the physics side.
I have 22 years of clinical experience in ultrasound, mainly vascular, 4 years in industry (applications specialist), 4 years of research in Children of the 90's and now 2 years of ultrasound physics. I would like to assist the BMUS council with what I've learned.

I was introduced to ultrasound physics by Dr Francis Duck when I was studying for my physics degree some decades ago. I was absolutely fascinated by the modality and ultrasound safety during this project, and I still am.
I hope I can be of service to the BMUS council.