Musculoskeletal Ultrasound PgCert

Diagnostic ultrasound is a rapidly developing area within musculoskeletal medicine with a number of allied health and medical professions utilising musculoskeletal ultrasound in their clinical practice.

Whether working within the NHS, private practice or elite sports, if you'd like to add the skills of diagnostic ultrasound assessment to your already established musculoskeletal assessment and treatment skills, the Musculoskeletal Ultrasound PgCert is the course for you. Equally, if you're a radiologist or sonographer who wishes to expand their knowledge and skills of musculoskeletal scanning, this course provides the ideal training and support to help you achieve your goal.

You’ll be taught by full-time clinicians working in the NHS and private sectors, in both point-of-care musculoskeletal clinics and radiology sonography roles. You’ll also benefit from guest lecturers who have expertise in a range of specialist areas including medical physicists, radiographers, consultant musculoskeletal radiologists and consultant rheumatologists. This offers you an exciting combination of clinical expertise, bringing together the different clinical domains where musculoskeletal ultrasound is used. You'll not only learn the core skill of musculoskeletal ultrasound image generation, interpretation, and reporting but there's also a strong emphasis on clinical relevance, clinical reasoning, and you'll learn the impact this can have on patient care.

At Brunel, we understand the challenges of fitting study around work and family life. This is why we also offer the modules from this programme as a CPD (Continuing Professional Development), so you can choose to study one module and return to complete the other module to achieve the full PgCert at a later date. Find out more and to apply. 

This course is accredited by the Consortium for the Accreditation of Sonographic Education (CASE), however your situational learning experience must be carried out in the UK or Republic of Ireland in order to gain this accreditation. This provides you with comprehensive training combined with workplace learning to help you become a musculoskeletal sonographer.

This course has also been endorsed by The British Medical Ultrasound Society (BMUS) and provides CPD credits in accordance with the Royal College of Radiologists.

This programme has been developed in partnership with The Ultrasound Site Ltd, who are established market leaders in musculoskeletal ultrasound training.

Got a question about this course? Check out our FAQs page.

Please note that the application deadline is 31 July 2022.

Course dates

This programme comprises of two different modules. The PgCert modules are positioned within the M level postgraduate physiotherapy programme, emphasising the focus on clinical integration of this unique and dynamic imaging modality. On successful completion of both modules, you'll graduate with a PgCert in musculoskeletal ultrasound.

The 'Integrating Musculoskeletal Ultrasound into Practice' module also includes a situational work-based learning experience and assessment. Before commencing the experience, you'll be required to arrange a clinical mentor.

This course can be studied 1 year part-time, starting in September.

On successful completion of this course, you'll be able to demonstrate a competency-based award in musculoskeletal ultrasound to employers. This will enable you to work autonomously as a musculoskeletal sonographer in a number of different clinical settings.

Our Musculoskeletal Ultrasound PgCert programme will equip you with the skills needed to work within focussed sonography roles in radiology settings. You’ll also be able to incorporate these skills within your current clinical practice. This could open up a new career path alongside your established clinical work.   

You could also continue on to further study. Completing this course means you could progress onto the PgDip or MSc of our Advanced Clinical Practice named specialist pathway in Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation.

Watch this video to hear first-hand from our musculoskeletal ultrasound students and how this course is helping them in their field of work.

• A UK 2:1 honours degree, or equivalent internationally recognised qualification in Health Care related subject that is registered with the Health and Care Professionals Council (HCPC) or General Medical Council (GMC). After you apply email the Admissions Office with your HCPC or GMC registration number. We need this to assess your application.

• IELTS: 7 (min 6.5 in all areas)
• Pearson: 64 (59 in all subscores)
• BrunELT: 68% (63% in all areas)
• TOEFL: 98 (min 23 in all areas) 

During the course you'll be assessed in a variety of ways and you'll be assessed differently for each module.

The Fundamentals of Musculoskeletal Ultrasound module will be assessed via:

• completion of mandatory online lectures with multiple choice questions
• OSCE and VIVA
• physics multiple choice and short answer question paper.

Integrating Musculoskeletal Ultrasound into Practice will be assessed through:

• VIVA case study presentation
• logbook submission of 250 scans, including an audit of 100 supervised scans
• situational work-based learning assessment
• final assessment of work-based situational learning from mentor.

As part of the final assessment for the ‘Integrating Musculoskeletal Ultrasound into Practice' module, you'll be required to perform a practical ultrasound scan examination on three different patients. This is assessed by your mentor, as well as an independent assessor. You'll need to provide the details of up to three independent assessors for the final exam, one of which will be selected by the University. Both the mentor and independent assessor are required to sign the relevant agreement prior to you starting this module.

The clinical mentor and possible independent assessors MUST meet the following criteria:

• An allied health professional who holds a CASE accredited / PgCert in Musculoskeletal Ultrasound with minimum two-years experience following completion.
• A Musculoskeletal Radiologist with two-years experience of using Musculoskeletal Ultrasound.