Top 12 Cardiovascular Technologist Skills to Put on Your Resume

A strong cardiovascular technologist resume leans on skills that prove steady hands, sharp thinking, and calm patient care. The mix matters: imaging finesse, rhythm interpretation, invasive lab savvy, and the judgment to keep everything safe and smooth when the pace jumps.

Cardiovascular Technologist Skills

1. Echocardiography
2. Electrocardiograms (ECG)
3. Holter Monitoring
4. Stress Tests
5. Pacemaker Interrogation
6. Vascular Ultrasound
7. Cardiac Catheterization
8. Intravascular Ultrasound
9. Electrophysiology
10. Doppler Imaging
11. Angioplasty Support
12. Defibrillator Management

1. Echocardiography

Echocardiography uses ultrasound to generate real-time images of the heart, allowing assessment of chambers, valves, wall motion, and overall function.

Why It's Important

It’s the frontline tool for evaluating structure and function without radiation. Echo clarifies heart failure, valve disease, cardiomyopathies, congenital abnormalities, and guides immediate decisions at the bedside.

How to Improve Echocardiography Skills

Refine probe handling, and everything downstream sharpens. Practical steps:

1. Keep learning: Pursue continuing education and case reviews through groups like the American Society of Echocardiography or EACVI. Strain imaging, contrast echo, and 3D workflows are worth mastering.

2. Hone acquisition: Standard views first, then tailored sweeps. Optimize depth, focus, gain, and frame rate; reduce foreshortening; align Doppler parallel to flow.

3. Quality assurance: Use lab protocols, inter-reader correlation, and periodic peer review. Track image adequacy and reporting turnaround.

4. Patient rapport: Clear instructions, positioning aids, and small adjustments cut scan time and artifact.

5. Vendor fluency: Know your system’s presets, measurement packages, and updates to move faster without losing accuracy.

How to Display Echocardiography Skills on Your Resume

2. Electrocardiograms (ECG)

An ECG records the heart’s electrical activity with skin electrodes, revealing rate, rhythm, intervals, and ischemic changes.

Why It's Important

Fast, noninvasive, essential for triage and monitoring. It flags arrhythmias, conduction disease, ischemia, electrolyte issues, and drug effects.

How to Improve Electrocardiograms (ECG) Skills

Precision beats noise. Build good habits:

1. Place electrodes correctly: Landmark consistently; avoid limb-lead swaps; confirm 10 mm/mV and 25 mm/s unless ordered otherwise.

2. Prep the skin: Clean, dry, lightly abrade if needed; clip excess hair. Lower impedance, cleaner tracings.

3. Tame artifacts: Coach stillness, warm cold skin, secure cables, set appropriate filter settings, and watch for baseline wander and muscle tremor.

4. Maintain equipment: Routine calibration, leadwire checks, and battery health prevent repeat studies.

5. Sharpen interpretation: Practice interval measurement, axis, and pattern recognition; update to current AHA/ACC guidance.

How to Display Electrocardiograms (ECG) Skills on Your Resume

3. Holter Monitoring

Continuous ambulatory ECG monitoring over 24–48 hours, and increasingly 7–14 days with patch monitors, to capture intermittent arrhythmias during daily life.

Why It's Important

It catches what a snapshot ECG misses—paroxysmal AF, pauses, PVC burden, rate control, and therapy response.

How to Improve Holter Monitoring Skills

More signal, less hassle, better yield:

1. Clear instructions: Explain showering limits, activity logs, and symptom buttons. Compliance drives diagnostic value.

2. Meticulous placement: Firm adhesion and smart lead routing reduce noise and dropouts, especially with longer-wear patches.

3. Quality checks: Verify signal before the patient leaves; confirm battery status and timestamps.

4. Efficient analysis: Use validated algorithms, then over-read. Correlate symptoms, diary entries, and tracings; report clinically meaningful metrics.

5. Match device to question: Holter for frequent events; extended patches or event monitors for rare symptoms; mobile telemetry when higher risk.

How to Display Holter Monitoring Skills on Your Resume

4. Stress Tests

Exercise or pharmacologic stress to evaluate myocardial perfusion, rhythm behavior, and functional capacity under load.

Why It's Important

It reveals ischemia, chronotropic competence, exertional arrhythmias, and blood pressure responses that rest studies conceal.

How to Improve Stress Tests Skills

Make the lab smooth and safe:

1. Pre-test prep: Confirm indications, screen risk, hold caffeine and specific meds as ordered, and explain the protocol to cut anxiety.

2. Protocol discipline: Use standardized stages (Bruce, Modified Bruce, Ramp) or the appropriate pharmacologic agent with proper dosing and antidotes ready.

3. Real-time vigilance: Continuous 12‑lead monitoring, manual BP at set intervals, symptom tracking, and immediate criteria for stopping.

4. Equipment reliability: Daily calibration, treadmill/ergometer checks, and emergency cart readiness.

5. Data quality: Minimize motion artifact; capture peak images swiftly for imaging protocols; document METs and recovery metrics.

6. Team drills: Practice emergency scenarios and handoffs; debrief after challenging cases.

How to Display Stress Tests Skills on Your Resume

5. Pacemaker Interrogation

Using a programmer to communicate with an implanted device, review diagnostics, confirm lead integrity and battery status, and adjust settings to match clinical needs.

Why It's Important

It ensures the device supports the patient’s rhythm safely—right mode, right rate response, right alerts—while tracking longevity and events.

How to Improve Pacemaker Interrogation Skills

Turn data into decisions:

1. Know the parameters: Lower/upper rate limits, AV delays, sensitivity, capture management, rate response, and mode switching—understand how each affects symptoms.

2. Trend wisely: Compare current interrogation with prior visits and remote transmissions; watch thresholds, impedances, burden of AF, and pacing percentages.

3. Crosswalk with the story: Pair patient-reported symptoms and activity patterns with stored EGMs and counters.

4. Stay current: Keep up with vendor software, alerts, and advisories; follow clinic protocols for security and data integrity.

5. Collaborate: Review complex cases with the EP team; document rationale for any programming changes.

How to Display Pacemaker Interrogation Skills on Your Resume

6. Vascular Ultrasound

Noninvasive imaging of arteries and veins with B‑mode, color, and spectral Doppler to evaluate structure and flow.

Why It's Important

It identifies stenosis, occlusion, aneurysm, dissection, venous thrombosis, and graft patency—fast, safe, and repeatable.

How to Improve Vascular Ultrasound Skills

Technique makes the diagnosis:

1. Angle and sample: Keep Doppler angle ≤60°; place the sample volume midstream; align with flow; adjust PRF to avoid aliasing.

2. Standardized criteria: Use current velocity thresholds and ratios for carotid, peripheral, renal, and mesenteric beds; document with consistent labeling.

3. Compression mastery: For DVT studies, thorough compressions every 1–2 cm, with augmentation when indicated.

4. Image optimization: Tweak gain, wall filter, and color box size; reduce blooming; freeze at peak systole for measurements.

5. Credentialing and QA: Pursue RVT/RVS credentials, participate in peer review, and track discrepancy rates.

How to Display Vascular Ultrasound Skills on Your Resume

7. Cardiac Catheterization

Invasive coronary and hemodynamic assessment through arterial and venous access to diagnose and treat cardiovascular disease.

Why It's Important

It visualizes coronary anatomy, measures pressures and gradients, and enables therapy—guiding, in the same sitting, what needs to happen next.

How to Improve Cardiac Catheterization Skills

Precision, safety, speed—in that order:

1. Access expertise: Radial-first when appropriate; ultrasound guidance; meticulous anticoagulation management; vigilant hemostasis.

2. Radiation and contrast stewardship: ALARA principles, collimation, frame rate reduction, real-time dose tracking; minimize contrast with careful injections.

3. Know the tools: Catheters, wires, microcatheters, hemostasis devices, pressure transducers—check, prep, and troubleshoot quickly.

4. Functional assessment: Integrate FFR/iFR when anatomy is ambiguous; document hemodynamics cleanly.

5. Team choreography: Time-outs, clear roles, and post-case debriefs to tighten workflow and reduce errors.

How to Display Cardiac Catheterization Skills on Your Resume

8. Intravascular Ultrasound

IVUS places a miniature ultrasound probe inside vessels to visualize lumen and wall, guiding diagnosis and interventions from within.

Why It's Important

It clarifies plaque burden and vessel size, optimizes stent sizing and expansion, and reduces guesswork when angiography alone misleads.

How to Improve Intravascular Ultrasound Skills

Sharper pulls, better calls:

1. Acquisition discipline: Center the catheter, perform slow uniform pullbacks, and record landmarks for reproducibility.

2. Interpret consistently: Measure EEM, lumen, MLA, and plaque symmetry; recognize calcium, lipid, and fibrous patterns.

3. Integrate with therapy: Use IVUS to choose stent diameter/length, guide lesion prep (atherectomy or specialty balloons), and confirm expansion and apposition.

4. Stay device-savvy: Understand console settings, catheters, and co-registration with angiography or physiology.

5. Cross-train: Review paired OCT cases to sharpen pattern recognition across modalities.

How to Display Intravascular Ultrasound Skills on Your Resume

9. Electrophysiology

The study and treatment of cardiac rhythm disorders using mapping, pacing, and ablation techniques.

Why It's Important

It pinpoints arrhythmia sources and treats them at their root, transforming care for AF, SVT, VT, and more.

How to Improve Electrophysiology Skills

From signals to strategy:

1. Signal literacy: Master intracardiac electrograms, intervals, and maneuvers; distinguish artifact from arrhythmia.

2. Mapping fluency: 3D systems, activation maps, entrainment concepts, and substrate modification—practice on real and simulated cases.

3. Ablation safety: Know power, contact force, lesion indexing, and esophageal protection; minimize fluoroscopy with ICE and mapping.

4. Periprocedural flow: Anticoagulation protocols, sedation, sterile technique, and complication readiness.

5. Outcome tracking: Log acute success, reconnection rates, and follow-up rhythm monitoring to close the loop.

How to Display Electrophysiology Skills on Your Resume

10. Doppler Imaging

Ultrasound assessment of blood flow velocity and direction in the heart and vessels using spectral and color techniques.

Why It's Important

It quantifies stenosis and regurgitation, detects turbulence, and completes the physiologic picture that grayscale alone cannot.

How to Improve Doppler Imaging Skills

Measure what matters, cleanly:

1. Angle correction: Keep insonation aligned with flow; use angle correction for vascular exams, avoid for cardiac CW when properly aligned.

2. Right settings: Adjust PRF/scale to prevent aliasing, tune wall filters, and set appropriate gains to avoid over- or underestimation.

3. Sample volume placement: Position at the vena contracta or jet core for valves; midstream for vessels; time measurements at peak systole/diastole as indicated.

4. Standard protocols: Use consistent methods for valve quantification (VTI, PISA where applicable) and velocity ratios in vascular beds.

5. Artifact awareness: Recognize blooming, mirror images, and angle-related errors; reposition and retune quickly.

How to Display Doppler Imaging Skills on Your Resume

11. Angioplasty Support

Hands-on assistance during percutaneous coronary intervention—prepping equipment, maintaining sterility, monitoring the patient, and documenting the case.

Why It's Important

It keeps the procedure safe and efficient while the operator focuses on crossing, dilating, and scaffolding the lesion.

How to Improve Angioplasty Support Skills

Make each step count:

1. Room readiness: Stents, balloons, wires, atherectomy devices, heparin, antiplatelets, vasodilators—checked and within reach.

2. Sterile discipline: Crisp scrubbing, draping, and contamination avoidance; rapid field fixes if breaches occur.

3. Hemodynamics: Accurate ACT timing, pressure waveform vigilance, and prompt communication of changes.

4. Imaging integration: Support IVUS/OCT setup, co-registration, and post-dilation optimization.

5. Complication readiness: Spasm, no-reflow, perforation, dissection—anticipate meds and tools; rehearse bailout steps with the team.

How to Display Angioplasty Support Skills on Your Resume

12. Defibrillator Management

Oversight of external defibrillators (including AEDs) and coordination with implantable cardioverter-defibrillator follow-up workflows.

Why It's Important

When seconds matter, readiness isn’t optional. Proper function, access, and training translate directly to lives saved.

How to Improve Defibrillator Management Skills

Reliability through routine:

1. Scheduled checks: Batteries, pads, software, and self-test logs reviewed and documented; rotate expiring supplies.

2. Placement and access: Visible, unlocked, mapped locations; staff know where and how to use them; integrate into drills.

3. Competency training: Regular BLS/ACLS refreshers, mock codes, and post-event debriefs to close gaps.

4. After-use process: Download event data, restock immediately, and verify readiness before returning to service.

5. ICD coordination: Understand magnet use, emergency management of inappropriate shocks, and the clinic’s interrogation and remote monitoring pathways.

How to Display Defibrillator Management Skills on Your Resume