Jobs / Healthcare / 29-2032.00
Diagnostic Medical Sonographers
Produce ultrasonic recordings of internal organs for use by physicians. Includes vascular technologists.
- US jobs
- 90,160
- Median wage
- $96,590 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of diagnostic medical sonographers?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Observe screen during scan to ensure that image produced is satisfactory for diagnostic purposes, making adjustments to equipment as required.
- Decide which images to include, looking for differences between healthy and pathological areas.
- Operate ultrasound equipment to produce and record images of the motion, shape, and composition of blood, organs, tissues, or bodily masses, such as fluid accumulations.
- Observe and care for patients throughout examinations to ensure their safety and comfort.
- Provide sonogram and oral or written summary of technical findings to physician for use in medical diagnosis.
- Select appropriate equipment settings and adjust patient positions to obtain the best sites and angles.
- Determine whether scope of exam should be extended, based on findings.
- Obtain and record accurate patient history, including prior test results or information from physical examinations.
- Coordinate work with physicians or other healthcare team members, including providing assistance during invasive procedures.
- Prepare patient for exam by explaining procedure, transferring patient to ultrasound table, scrubbing skin and applying gel, and positioning patient properly.
- Maintain records that include patient information, sonographs and interpretations, files of correspondence, publications and regulations, or quality assurance records, such as pathology, biopsy, or post-operative reports.
- Record and store suitable images, using camera unit connected to the ultrasound equipment.
Other job titles for this occupation (27)
Cardiovascular Sonographer · Echo Tech (Echocardiographic Technician) · Echosonographer Technologist (Echo Technologist) · Medical Sonographer · RDMS (Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer) · Registered Diagnostic Cardiac Sonographer · RVT (Registered Vascular Technologist) · Staff Sonographer · Ultrasound Technician (Ultrasound Tech) · Ultrasound Technologist (Ultrasound Tech) · Echo Sonographer (Echocardiograph Sonographer) · Echo Tech (Echocardiogram Technician) · Echocardiographer · Echocardiographic Technologist · Echocardiography Technician (Echocardiography Tech) · Echocardiology Technologist · OBGYN Sonographer (Obstetrics and Gynecology Sonographer) · Sonogram Technician (Sonogram Tech) · Sonography Technician (Sonography Tech) · Sonography Technologist · Travel OB Ultrasound Tech (Travel Obstetrics Ultrasound Technician) · Travel Ultrasound Sonographer · Travel Ultrasound Technologist · Ultrasonic Tester · Ultrasound Tester · Vascular Ultrasound Technician (Vascular Ultrasound Tech) · Vascular Ultrasound Technologist