Two Down One More To Go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well the end of the second semester is here. I don't know about all of you, but I am ready for the break. Now I will finally have some time to clean my house to get ready for the holiday.

I finally finished my 3rd comp Friday, I was able to do orbits. I was getting worried that I would not get another comp because we were not getting very many different exams except the usual lumbar and ortho due to the printer being down. The Doc's have been sending all of their patients to the hospital to get their exams since they can print films, so our exams have been very limited. My facility finally got the new printer on Friday so next semester we should be back to normal.

Hopefully next semester I will be able to do an MRA or an MRCP, my clinical site gets their fair share of these along with breast exams. I find all of these exams very interesting but challenging. I do feel like I have learned allot this semester and the techs have taught me allot of tricks on how to position patients different ways so they can be more comfortable, especially when we are doing shoulders on bigger patients. The individual exams and why and how we plan the scans are making alot more sense to me. I am feeling alot more comfortable being in the driver seat now, hopefully I won't lose my confidence over break.

Well I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays and I will talk to you again next year.

Winding Down!!!!!!!!

Well I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Ours was pretty exciting, alot of people, alot of dogs, and alot of craziness. But I wouldn't want it any other way. We had a really nice holiday.

This past week in clinicals was pretty uneventful. We did alot of spines, shoulders, knees, and brains. I was hoping to see some exams that I haven't got to do yet. I did get to do a knee of a young kid about 19 years old, he had injured it during a wrestling match. The MR showed an avulsion fracture of the tibia and I had never seen a fracture in MR before. Everything we have done has been tendons or soft tissue and nerve problems, this was my first bone fracture. I thought that this exam was pretty interesting. It still amazes me how pretty MR images are and how much detail you can see. Well other then that not much else to talk about.

I did find out I am going to continue the last semester of clinicals at this facility. I was trying to go to Clarian Arnett but was never able to get confirmation so the Director here said just to finish it out at this site. It will probably be for the best with Winter coming on since this clinical site is all of 5 minutes from my house. Well I will post more next week, hopefully I will have more to talk about regarding clinicals.

Lumbar Special

I could not believe it, I went in on Wednesday last week and we had a whole day schedule full of Lumbar exams. Well needless to say I have maxed my required 10 Lumbar exams needed for the ASRT. Oh well it really built my confidence in that I can do a good Lumbar exam. We did have a few patients that we had to give contrast to due to having previous surgery and a few really messed up backs, all and all it went pretty smoothly.

Friday I was able to scan my first breast exam, with allot of help. I really think these exams are interesting. All though this one was strange because the patient had found a small pea size lump on her right breast through self examination in late September and recently had a previous mammo study in July, that had not detected anything. The tech stated the Doctor should of ordered an ultrasound first before the MRI, that is usually the way the routine of tests are scheduled. Anyway we did the MRI second and are waiting to see if the Radiologist can detect anything. We couldn't see anything that jumped out at us. Hopefully it will be nothing more than a clogged duct or cyst. I also have been observing the mammo exams when we are not busy. I think this is an area I would like to get into in the future. I am going to try to go to the week mammo conference this April, however I don't have any idea where I can get my clinicals done. Oh well I will figure it out, where there is a will there is a way. Well I will post more later, hopefully this week I will be able to get another comp and have a variety of scans instead of all Lumbars.

Scanning On My Own!!!!!!!!!

Well I was able to get comp number two this last week and allot more scans for the ASRT required list. I am starting to get the hang of it finally but still need help. I am able to do a few scans pretty much by myself and the techs just leave me alone unless I ask for help. I am starting to feel like a real MRI tech. The most recent exams I have been doing by myself are the shoulder exams. The clinic site that I am at seems to do allot of shoulders, lumbars, and knees. I imagine that this is very dependent on the type of environment and geographic area the clinic is set in. Crawfordsville is very much a factory town and we probably get allot of shoulders due to repetitive movement due to the work, along with knees and lumbars because people are standing on cement all day long. I never really thought about MRI in this way before. Anyway we have had to turn quite a few people away and send them to an open site due to their shoulder size and not being able to fit into the bore. Allot of the people comming in for shoulders cannot raise their other arm over their head either due to problems with both shoulders or previous surgery on the opposite shoulder.

Next week I checked the schedule and we have several exams that we don't get allot of breasts, feet, and a couple of abdomens. I think I am going to try to arrange my clinic days to be able to observe these exams. I figure I am going to have to get out into my first job before I will be able to get all the exams that are needed to be able to sit for the boards. This is really starting to worry me due to the lack of jobs in this field. Hopefully the job drought will give by the time we all are ready to get out in the field we have chosen. Hope everyone has a good weekend, post more later.

Interesting Week

Well I received my first comp this week and almost had a second. I comped out on my Head/Brain without and got the room set up and waited for the next patient which was a Rt shoulder exam. The patient finally showed up late and I got him all situated on the MR couch with the coil in place, started to move him in the machine and he freaked out. He was very claustrophobic and could not do the exam. It never fails!!!!!! Oh well maybe I will be able to comp out on my sholder next week.

Besides all that I did get to see an interesting case. A patient came in that was not able to walk and we had to use the MR wheelchair to get him in the room. He had only bent over to get into a file cabinet and from there he could not straighten back up. He was around 300 pounds and had very broad shoulders. We had to raise his arms over his head to do his lumbar exam. While scanning we could see a blowout on his disc space between L3 and L4. I have seen alot of bad disc spaces but this one looked like it had a balloon about the size of a nickle on the posterior side. No wonder he could not walk, even the Radiologist came out to talk about this scan with us. He stated he hadn't seen a blowout this bad in a long time. Just looking at his pictures made my back hurt. Talk to you all later, hope everyones clinicals are going well.

Glad to be back!!!!!!!!!

Well I probably should start out by introducing myself again to all the new students who joined clinicals this semester. I am Kathleen Jensen and I am a third shift weekend option x-ray tech at IU in Indianapolis. I graduated from IU Radiography in 2008 and am excited about getting my bachelors in CT/MRI from USI. I also am starting to get to do a little CT at work for our new stroke accredidation. I am able to do heads w/o and they are going to teach me the other basic exams. Maybe I will tackle CT certification after MR is finished.

I just finished my first week back in MR and was happy to be scanning again. I didn't get to do much due to the tech I usually am with is on vacation. However, I did get to see an exam that I had not observed before and I will hopefully get to see it again. The tech stated that we do not get to do these full exams very often. The exam was a full IAC and we usually do a sequence with heads for dizziness but don't see very many individual IAC exams ordered. It was very interesting and she pointed out all the anatomy through the whole scan. I still find it amazing how detailed MR pictures are. Post more later!!!!!!!

Finished My Comps!!!!!!

Well I am so relieved that I was able to finish my comps, it's been a struggle but I did it. I was able to comp out on a knee, C-spine, and L-spine. I have one more day of clinicals this semester and I am finished. It has been a very interesting, fun and stressful semester and I feel that I have learned allot but I know I have so much more to learn. My clinical site has invited me to stay and do my Fall clinicals with them and have re-arranged a new schedule so I will be training with the lead tech 2 days a week which will give me better consistency, and I think this will make the learning of each exam a little bit easier. I was switching between 3 different techs and I was getting very confused with the different ways they would all tweak the perameters. At first I thought that would be a good thing, but after doing it for awhile I was interchanging all their different ways, which made it very confusing for me. So I am glad for the change. I really like my facility and it is so convenient for me being it is only about 5 minutes away. I wish I had it so easy with work, but I guess we can't have everything all the time.

This week on top of my last comp, I was able to see some different exams that the tech said they did not do very much. One was an MRA of the renal arteries and the other was a lower extremity run off. The lower extremity run off was the very rare exam. I only got to see part of it due to the patient was claustrophobic and could not do the first part after the injection. We did do the exam of the lower legs using the abdomen coil and picked out the best image showing the arteries and then watched the flow and tried to time it using a calculation she called FBI. She stated it was something that Toshiba had special and that is one of the reasons they picked Toshiba 1.5 over the other brands of magnets. It was pretty interesting how she calculated it and then she would compare it to the scans done after the injection. She explained that the scans done after the injection would start in the Abd. and then capture the flow all the way to the toes. We saved the leg scan without and will retrieve it when the patient comes back with sedation next week to finish the scans with contrast. I might go in to see the rest of it just for the learning experience. Well for now have a good weekend and I will post later.

New Experiences

Well this week has been challenging. I got to experience our first nasty patient. I didn't really have to handle the whole situation but I was involved more then I wanted to be. This individual patient had an aneurysm clip in his brain that was placed in 1998 and did not have a card for it. I had gone out to get the patient and collect his history when I became aware of this info. I then explained I was training and that the decision would be left to lead tech according their policy. My tech which is the lead MR tech explained for safety reasons for him, that she would not perform the exam. He threw a fit in the waiting room cussing at her in front of the other patients and intern left. She had explained the procedure in length and the problems that could arise and he insisted that he had previously had an MRI and everything went fine. She asked if he would like to talk to the Radiologist or her Boss and he stormed out screaming no and a few other choice words. Then he preceded to contact the Director by phone later in the day. All in all he did come back the next morning for the MRI in which another tech performed it and he stated that he did not want to see the lead tech again and that she was very unprofessional and nasty, which was totally a lie. I wasn't quite sure what was explained to him by the Director but I felt sorry for the lead tech, who was just following the policy that had been laid out. I hope the Director explained it was policy and that she was following protocol and that she spent the entire rest of the afternoon investigating his clip to find out if it was MRI safe. Oh well I suppose this is the first of many instances that this will happen, but I really had to bite my tongue. It was definitely a learning experience, especially on how the tech went about tracking all the info down. However, I am very amazed on how many people don't know what they have had done or do not carry cards with them on their stents or hardware that they have.

On a better note I have accomplished two of my comps and am going to try and get the last one this coming week. I am really getting to scan allot however only one of the techs will comp me out and I don't get to scan with her as often. I did get to see a breast MR and that was very interesting. It seemed to be very involved, much more so then the other exams I have experienced, it will be awhile before I try that one. I seem to deal with the different spine examinations the best. I was able to scan an MRA of the brain and carotids the other day (with help), we also had to do an MRI of the brain and neck, which made for a very long exam. The patient surprisingly did very well. Well I have got to go school shopping for my son so I will give more updates soon. Have a great weekend!

Hello Again

Well last week clinicals were very exciting for me. I finally got to train with the main MRI tech and she let me scan all day long (with her help). We did an MRA of the head and neck which was very interesting. We had a few sedated patients and I had not seen that done yet either. I am starting to feel like I am getting the hang of this now all though I know it will be quite some time before I am really comfortable. The MRA of the head and neck was really interesting and I seemed to follow along with everything we were doing. I especially enjoyed the Mipping part at the end. Those images are really cool to look at and it is amazing the information that can be diagnosed out of these images. We did find a stricture in one of the left carotids and the head seemed to be ok, although he had a tumor that had been there for 3 yrs.

We also had a few inpatients come over from the hospital due to their scanner being down for one day. Dealing with these patients was totally different then the outpatients we do regularly. I guess a hospital setting is going to be a whole different ballgame from the outpatient center environment. Most of these patients were the sedated patients I was talking about previously and they had a nurse with them for the exam. I remember seeing the inpatients come down at IU Hospital when I was a secretary in MRI but didn't realize how difficult some of the patients are to work with and how it really can effect the success of the exam. I remember listening to the techs talk but did not realize how important and hard it is to make the patients comfortable when they are so sick. IU is a beast of its own when it comes to very very sick patients. Now I understand what they were saying in regards to the success of the exam and quality of images you will get. My tech and I were discussing this the other day and she stated she really believes that comfort of the patient is key to MRI.

Well until next time hope you are all enjoying your clinicals as much as I am.

Finally Hands On Time

Hello again,

I finally got to do some scanning, I was able to scan a couple of knees, and a lumbar and also a few shoulders. I really liked being in control and setting up the different plans. I always learn better by doing hands on. I was able to understand why I was increasing the slice thickness as well as number of slices. I played with the field of view as well as just simply looking through the different sequences and finding the one I wanted to set up the next sequence off of. I am starting to figure out the filming and their process of what and when to print and when to send to Proscan as well as PACS. I am very comfortable with the learning environment and really like being able to experience the different style each tech has to offer.

We did an MRCP scan on Monday and it was really interesting as well as confusing to me. I had never seen and abdomen done and then doing the MRCP on top of it was pretty confusing for me. My tech said they don't do these very much. There was allot of breath hold and I found that kind of confusing as to when to do each. The whole exam reminded me of the ERCPs we do at work except less invasive, the pictures looked very similar and there was a stenosis that my tech pointed out. Hopefully I will get to see another one.

I also got to see a brain for vertigo and the patient had already been diagnosed with a brain tumor in the ventricles. It was very interesting, the tech nor I could find the existing tumor and the Radiologist that we have came out and basically gave a short read to us of the scan. He found it right away, it's amazing how his eyes are so well trained to pick up things like that instantly. He is great and really willing to go over the scans with us and point out different things we don't understand or can't pick up with our eyes. They really have a great team work ethic.

I am anxious to go back next week and do some scanning again, I really think I am going to enjoy MRI, all though I do realize I still have allot to learn.

Until next time. Have a Happy Fourth of July!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Introduction

Hi Everyone

I finally got this thing figured out. Sorry for the delay, I had a pretty frustrating start at my clinical site with a few set-backs. Well I am finally there and starting to learn MRI. I really like the out-patient setting, it is allot different from the Hospital. I have been learning about the MRI machine (Toshiba 1.5). I also have been learning all the coils and observing allot of different scans. I am setting up the room and correct coils for the different scans along with getting the patients and taking down their history. I have been taking allot of notes about the different exams and figuring the routine out. The clinical site I am at stays pretty busy, however they do close at 5:00 and schedule the last exam for around 3:30 with hour slots. We usually perform about 6 to 8 exams a day. I usually help out with x-ray in between. The site is literally 5 minutes from my house and I love this, due to my last school and my current job being and hour away from my home. We have a Radiologist on site and also send our ortho scans to an off-site Radiologist group as well. The techs I work with are very efficient and work well together, which makes for a great learning environment and I think I am really going to enjoy this experience.

About Me
I am a 3rd shift weekend option x-ray tech at IU Hospital in Indianapolis and live in Crawfordsville, Indiana. I graduated from IU Radiography program in May of 2008 and have worked for IU for almost three years in the Radiology department. My goals are to become certified in MRI by the end of 2010 and also become certified in Mammography by 2011. I am really looking forward to someday getting a straight day job again. I am getting very tired of working nights, however it is a great shift for school and family and 3rd shift makes you a very independent tech since I am all alone and have to figure things out by myself.

Family
I have four children and one still is living at home. He is eleven and keeps me very busy with sporting events and practices. My other three live close by and we all spend allot of time together. I plan on getting married sometime this year or early next year to my youngest son's father. School has been very difficult on our family life, but hopefully I will be done within the next couple years. This is why I chose USI's on-line program for my Bachelors, it is making things a little bit easier to handle.

Until next time
I look forward to getting to know all of you and good luck with your clinicals and studies.