Student Spotlight

Milan Manorat

Milan Manorat’s impressive 3.62 cumulative grade point average and her commitment and dedication to the DMS program has landed her first selection in the 2019 Student Spotlight!

Milan is in her final semester before embarking on externship, and though she has loved all her classes, her favorite has been Abdomen – “I love learning about anatomy and physiology, hormonal changes in the body, and how different parts of the body take part in the digestive system to aid in reabsorption and excretion”.

Milan’s biggest challenge in the program has been “being able to visualize the orientation of the beam and which section I was cutting into”.  To understand better, Milan took to drawing sections of the liver (she was learning the organ at the time) and positioning the paper anatomically correct (anterior, posterior, superior, etc.) over where the patient would be. Once she was able to understand this, it made her a much better student.

“Learning to manipulate the transducer”, has impacted Milan the most. “Scanning looks easy, and most people think – you put jelly on a pregnant lady and just glide the transducer across her belly, but there is a lot more to it! We must maneuver our way through ribs to get a good image of a kidney or angle around gas bubbles that create dirty shadowing. Scanning can be difficult, but if we understand the anatomy and how to manipulate the transducer, we will have an easier time finding a job when we graduate”.

 As for Milan’s favorite faculty – “It would be hard for me to choose just one favorite instructor, I feel all play a big part in my education in different ways. Dr. Arthur, known for his physics knowledge, is helpful in answering any of my vascular and physics questions. So, if you have any questions, he is your guy. As for Dr. Bahaa, I loved when he would display diseases on the board and have students come up one by one to identify. This helped me understand how to describe diseases sonographically. Dr. Bahaa has notes and lectures that get right to the point, which our class really enjoyed. Lastly, Mr. Dhillon, helped me to learn and understand how to properly angle the transducer to find the organ”.

 When Milan is not focused on her studies, her interests point to food. Milan characterizes herself as an “amateur foodie!” She loves to cook, eat at high rated restaurants, and will even travel some distance for a good meal.  She enjoys watching cooking and food travel shows as well as cooking videos.

And what animal would Milan be if she could be any animal – Elephant! “They are rather large but caring and gentle, also highly intelligent and have good memorization (which would be great for study anatomy and physiology)”. And as an introverted extrovert, Milan would say, “My extroverted part loves hanging out in groups like elephants!”

After graduation, Milan would like to take a few weeks off to travel but then plans on getting right back into Ultrasound by taking her ARDMS exam and then immediately getting a job. From what we have seen of Milan – we have no doubt she will do just this, and shine as a Sonographer.