Lianne Broughton

Lianne Broughton

Job Description

My original career was in healthcare working in the x-ray department. My primary role was taking pictures of patients’ anatomy with either X-rays or ultrasound. This career requires you to know anatomy, physics (sound waves, xrays etc.). This profession allows you to interact with patients and be a part of their health care journey. The images we take allow the Dr.s do diagnose the problems that the patient may have and allow them to treat them appropriately.

Currently, I am working in the IT department and was involved in developing the hospital information system, the system that is used throughout the hospital to document, store patient information and provide communication between departments to improve patient care. I was provided an opportunity to learn how to build the system that is being used. I was able to continue in this department to help maintain the system by implementing updates and by building optimization requests for improvement.

Relevant School Subjects

Computer Studies

Areas Of Expertise

Computers & Telecom

Career Story

When I was in high school, I knew I wanted to do something to help people and was interested in health care. I did not want to be a nurse as I thought I would get too attached to the patients, and I did not want to deal with needles or the indepth patient care. (I liked the idea of having the patient come and go for short periods of time). I was initially attracted to the ultrasound program as I thought it would be cool to see babies. I applied to the radiography (x-ray) program as that was the only path to Ultrasound at the time. The course was 24 months straight with a combination of in-class and in-hospital/hands-on training. When I finished that course I was accepted into the Ultrasound program that was another 12 months of school.
There were lots of jobs in ultrasound (Sonography) at the time I graduated which allowed me to work in multiple job settings including hospitals and private clinics.
I also had an opportunity to work abroad and was able to work in Bermuda for 3 years.
When I returned from abroad, I was able to obtain a job at Hamilton Health Sciences where I ended up in the postition of Senior Ultrasound technologist. I worked mostly at the Hamilton General Hospital which has specialties of Cardiac, Vascular, Trauma, Neuro and Burns. That means there was not many babies! I discovered there was so much more to Ultrasound than babies and spent the majority of my time scanning everything but babies and focusing on blood flow/ blood vessels. In my role, I was also involved with student training and evaluation. I worked for Mohawk/McMaster at times to teach vascular scanning to students at the school.

After many years in this field, I developed some repetitive strain injuries which led me to rethink where my career should go. I applied for some new positions that were outside of my comfort zone, but allowed me to apply my knowledge and skills in different roles. This led me to my current role as a computer analyst, building and developing the hospital computer system..