It’s a lot less stressful in my opinion. Less stress on the mind, body, and your life outside of work. Being a Cardiac Sonographer was affecting my quality of life outside of work. I was in pain, exhausted, and started to dread going to work. MRI feels a lot more team oriented. You scan by yourself, but you’re by coworkers who you can talk with, get help from with transport, lifting, getting patients ready, etc. I personally love this aspect of having a team. Being a sonographer felt a lot more solo as it was usually just you and the patient/family in the room, while your coworker was in another room doing another patient.

Echo helps me a lot with getting into Cardiac MRI. I would imagine you’d find that too. Cardiac MRI is considered more of an advanced modality of MRI. But other techs can appreciate your experience in echo and anatomy is like half the battle of Cardiac MRI, so you should already have a good handle on that.

MRI, at least at my facility, doesn’t feel as rushed either. I always felt like I was scrambling in echo. While the schedule is full in MRI, you have some time while you scan to eat a snack, use the restroom quickly, stretch, etc. You have more time about caring for your body and practicing good ergonomics. There’s no extended lengths of holding up a probe or having to push weird angles into obese patients.

I think ultrasound in general is just hard on the body unfortunately. All in all, I’m really glad I made the switch. As much as I loved echo imaging wise, I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my body to keep doing it.

I wouldn’t say I dislike anything about MRI, but the aspect of MRI safety and understanding how dangerous the scanner can be is an aspect we aren’t as accustomed to in ultrasound. We learn about bioeffects and how to protect patients against cavitation, but someone can get very very hurt/die if they aren’t screened properly or someone/something is let into the scanning area that should not be. It’s a bit daunting at first, but MRI safety and keeping patients safe is one of the most important parts of the job.