According to one embodiment, an ultrasonic probe has a laminated structure of an acoustic matching layer, transducer layer with arrayed transducers, and backing layer. A transmission/reception unit transmits and receives ultrasonic waves to and from an object via the transducers. A control unit controls the transmission/reception unit to synchronize ultrasonic-wave generation by a specific transducer of the transducers with ultrasonic-wave reception by a different transducer. A phase shift detection unit detects a phase shift between an output signal from the transmission/reception unit and a reference signal, the output signal corresponding to synchronization between the ultrasonic-wave generation and the ultrasonic-wave reception.