Julie Burnage
Julie trained and worked as a Radiographer in North West England in the early 1980s and moved to North Wales. In 1987 she started her ultrasound training in the NHS in 1988 and after qualifying went to night school to train to be a teacher so that she could share the love she had developed for ultrasound in the best possible way.
In 1995 Julie set up an ultrasound scanning company providing diagnostic scans to both NHS and self-pay patients in GP surgeries and clinics. Despite the negativity from many in the imaging community who believed that non medics could not and should not be providing ultrasound services Julie continued to extol the virtues of providing ‘care closer to home’. Speaking at conferences she often faced accusations of working outside her scope of practice but nothing could be further from the truth. With time she worked with some amazing Radiologists who understood the business model and were huge advocates of what she was doing and provided support and guidance.
The business grew and grew and following a merger with another provider in 2013 and subsequent ‘buy out’ by venture capitalists, in 2020, Julie was ready for another challenge. By this time, Angie had been working in a small animal specialist hospital for some years and persuaded Julie to join Aspire UCS and work with her providing ultrasound services and teaching vets, vet nurses (as well as human medics) the joy of ultrasound. Covid-19 lockdown gave Julie and Angie the perfect opportunity to write professional ultrasound practice guidelines for small animal abdominal ultrasound.