Real-Life Math
Echocardiography technologists use ultrasound to produce images of the heart. They must operate complicated equipment.
The technologist is also the person responsible for finding abnormalities in the heart. Knowing how to figure out how much blood is flowing through valves and how fast the heart is pumping is essential, says Margaret Corbett. She is an echocardiographer.
"The echocardiographer uses math skills on a daily basis in the calculation of heart function," says Janel Mays. She is a technologist in Minnesota.
Brad Ferguson is a technologist in South Carolina. He says that he uses math to convert measurements from metric to U.S. measures and back. Ferguson also calculates drug dosages occasionally, since he works in invasive procedures as well.
You are scanning a patient to determine how fast blood is flowing through their heart valves. As part of the report you will write up for the physician, you need to tell the doctor not the speed, but the pressure of the blood. You will use the speed to figure out the pressure in the valve. This is known as the Bernoulli equation.
The equation is 4v2 where v = velocity or speed. The result, the pressure, is represented in millimeters of mercury.
In the patient, you have recorded a velocity of 3 mm per second. What will you write in your report to the physician?