Happy Tech Week!

Happy Tech Week! In honor of Wilhelm Roentgen discovering the very first x-ray on November 8, 1895, this week has been designated as Rad Tech Week. The hospital where I work planned several activities to celebrate including pizza for lunch, cake, pumpking carving contest, chili cook off and gifts for the imaging department staff. Since I haven't been at work yet this week, I haven't been able to participate, but I'm looking forward to seeing what's in store for Friday. At clinicals on Tuesday, the site provided us breakfast, and there is an "imaging quiz" scheduled for tomorrow during lunch. I've always enjoyed occupation appreciation weeks and think they can be very rewarding.

Today in class, we received our tests back. In Exposure, I earned a 92, which I was pretty happy about. In calculating the average gradient on one problem, I "fat fingered" one of my calculator buttons which gave me a wrong answer, so I missed THAT question plus a second question related to that answer. Just a stupid mistake on my part for not double checking my work, but I'm satisfied with a 92. My positioning test went much better - I scored a 100!! I was relieved to have gotten such a good grade, and since I'm so competitive, was happy to hear that I was only one of three students with a perfect score. :) I've been trying REALLY HARD to keep my competitive nature under wraps and have been doing a decent job; however this is MY blog, and I will gloat when I want to. :)

Clinicals on Tuesday were really busy - we had several Upper GIs scheduled, along with two Small Bowel studies which tend to be time consuming. In the midst of the fluro chaos, an order came in for a tib/fib (one of my remaining comps!)...on a four-year old boy. My experience in working with children is limited (at best); my clinical site caters more toward adults, I have no children of my own, and my closest nieces are more than 400 miles away. I enjoy (most) kids and actually want to have one of my own some day, but up until now I'm inexperienced. :) The tech I worked with on Tuesday had just returned from a several-month long medical leave, so she was in the process of re-acclimating herself to x-ray. Before bringing the patient into the exam room, I told her I'd like to comp. When the young boy (Spidey for short - he had on a Spiderman shirt) came into the room, we realized there was a mistake with the order: the doctor had ordered a left tib/fib and a right foot. When I verified the information with his mother, she said it should've been his left foot and left tib/fib. My tech took the paperwork to correct the mistake with the doctor. When she returned, I was in the process of positioning Spidey's left leg for the tib/fib and having trouble getting him to keep his foot flexed. The tech must have recognized some frustration in my eyes because she had the mother hold Spidey's toes and took over the rest of the exam (and left foot). I was a bit disappointed that I was not able to participate more because this was the first tib/fib exam I had EVER seen ordered at clinicals, and I'm worried that it could be the last. When we finished up with Spidey, my tech asked me about checking off. I told her that I didn't feel comfortable comping on the exam since I didn't do it alone, and she was fine with that. I understand that all techs are different, however I had grown used to comping with techs who weren't participating in the exam but rather standing off to the side mentally evaluating us and checking our finished image for perfection. Hopefully we'll get another tib/fib exam tomorrow - NOW I'm ready. :)

A Real Doozie

Today was quite possibly one of the most mind-draining days at school that I have ever experienced. (Consider yourself warned for the remainder of this post!) I had tests in both classes this morning, and while that is not out of the norm, the AMOUNT of material covered on each test was unusual. Last week one of the instructors remarked to the other, "The test I have scheduled for Monday is going to be a REAL doozie, and then I heard you scheduled your test for the same day!" A REAL DOOZIE. From the INSTRUCTOR. :) Needless to say, I thought the exposure LAST test was "a real doozie," so I made sure to study extra hard for this one. I read over my notes every night last week and put in a good 3-4 hours studying this weekend, so when the test came, I felt 98% prepared (there's usually about 2% of self-doubt in almost everything I do). I FLEW through the test. I can't decide if the test was actually a bit easier than the last one; if I had just studied really well; or if I, after hearing my instructor's "doozie" comment, had built this test up to be SOOOO hard in my mind that anything would be easier. Probably a little of each. :)

Our positioning test covered the pelvis and hips, and while the actual positions we were required to learn weren't difficult, there seemed to be a lot of nooks and crannies on this particular anatomy which made diagram labeling more of a chore than normal. After our test in exposure, I wanted nothing more than to crumple into an intellectually-exhausted ball on a chair in the lounge. But, like the dedicated student I am, I forced myself to look over my positioning notes and anatomy ONE MORE TIME...for an hour and a half. :) I only got caught up on one or two of the questions on the positioning test (one of which was in the labeling section), but overall, I feel really good about it. We'll find out our grades on Wednesday.

Since my last post, I've been able to comp on a few more exams at clinicals, and I only have one more required comp for the quarter and 3 more "elective" comps. (The elective comps are not really elective...we still have to comp on them, but out of the list of ten we received at the beginning of the quarter, we are required to comp on at least seven. The ones we don't comp on this quarter just roll over to next quarter.) The exams I still have to comp on are listed below under my goals. The exams I still need to comp on are pretty common at my clinical site, but since I'm there on "Fluro Day," we have fewer routine exams (ortho exams) scheduled. One of my favorite techs always taunts me during my clinical days by saying, "Do you have ANY idea how many forearms we did on Monday? I won't even tell you how many tib/fibs came in when you weren't here!" ;) He knows that my goal is to finish all ten comps very soon, and it sounds like he was the same way when he was a student. I'm very fortunate to have such a great teacher.

Goals for this week:
1. Continue increasing confidence
2. Begin working on C-Spine and T-Spine exams
3. Gain at least two comps (ankle, tib/fib, hand, forearm)

Have a great week!