May 31, 2001 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

Seeing with sound

In 1999, median annual earnings for diagnostic medical sonographers were $42,330.

[Chart data—TXT]

The middle 50 percent of diagnostic medical sonographers earned between $36,780 and $50,230 per year. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $31,190 and the highest 10 percent earned more than $56,030.

Diagnostic medical sonographers use special equipment to direct high-frequency sound waves into areas of a patient's body. Sonographers operate the equipment, which collects reflected echoes and forms an image that may be videotaped, transmitted, or photographed for interpretation and diagnosis by a physician.

These data are a product of the Occupational Employment Statistics program. For additional information, see "Diagnostic medical sonographers: seeing with sound," by Alan Lacey in the Occupational Outlook Quarterly, Summer 2001. Note about the chart: deciles divide the dataset into 10 equal-size groups and quartiles divide the dataset into 4 equal-size groups.