Teaching Doppler Ultrasound in an Introductory Laboratory for Pre-health Students

We present a novel activity to demonstrate the Doppler shift of a sound wave, incident at an angle, upon a moving reflector. This activity is intended for use in an introductory physics laboratory focused on preparing students for the health and medical fields. The activity is designed to simulate Doppler velocity measurements from ultrasound imaging. While there have been previous qualitative discussions of blood flow measurements in the physics education literature, they were without associated laboratory activities. The lab can be part of a life science physics curriculum that has been identified in need of reforms to meet the needs of students and the medical and biology community.We present a novel activity to demonstrate the Doppler shift of a sound wave, incident at an angle, upon a moving reflector. This activity is intended for use in an introductory physics laboratory focused on preparing students for the health and medical fields. The activity is designed to simulate Doppler velocity measurements from ultrasound imaging. While there have been previous qualitative discussions of blood flow measurements in the physics education literature, they were without associated laboratory activities. The lab can be part of a life science physics curriculum that has been identified in need of reforms to meet the needs of students and the medical and biology community.