Staying on top of current infection control protocols has been incredibly important for healthcare workers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s why three Ultrasound students at the Michener Institute of Education at UHN wrote a literature review called Infection Control and Safety Protocols to Protect Sonographers and Patients, which was published in the Summer 2021 edition of the Canadian Journal of Medical Sonography (CJMS).
Grace Park, Salwa Bahador and Linda La started working on the review in the summer of 2020 as part of their Evidence-Based Clinical Practice course.
“This topic was interesting to us because knowledge and information related to infection control specific to COVID-19 was relevant and very important to sonographers,” says Grace Park.
The students used materials such as peer reviewed articles and reports, working papers, government documents and evaluations to inform their review as the topic was still fairly new and emerging at the time.
“Evidence-based practice is important because it allows us to implement useful findings in clinical practice based on current research and knowledge,” says Salwa Bahador. “It also helps to evaluate current evidence for its validity rather than focusing on traditional resources such as outdated textbooks to help reduce the likelihood of any errors in clinical practice.”
Ultrasound faculty were so impressed with the students’ work that they encouraged them to submit it to the CJMS. About one year after they began working on it, the review was accepted for publication.
“Although our work was targeted toward sonographers, many of the protocols and suggestions can be adopted by several other healthcare professionals,” says Linda La.
The review will also be published in an upcoming issue of MICH: The Student Journal of the Michener Institute, which is an annual compendium showcasing some of the original work of the school’s students.
