Radiation is a double edged sword. It can both help and hurt a patient at the same time.  As technologists, we should never forget this important fact. We must do everything to keep ourselves and our patients as safe as possible. Scatter or secondary radiation is the main source of occupational radiation exposure. Let’s not forget our ...

My brother has a lung disorder related to rheumatoid arthritis which may eventually cause him to need a lung transplant. It’s as troubling to write about as it was to hear about a few months ago. Were my brother at the top of the lung transplant list and a judge decided to change the rules and give the next available donor lung to a little girl ...

As 40 quickly approaches, I am becoming increasingly aware of the medical screenings that are in my future. With a history of breast cancer in my family, I have already been getting mammograms since I was 33. Recently, I was reading the May/June issue of the Journal of the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, I found an article about ...

Last week I had to have surgery to repair an inguinal hernia. This is a rare type of hernia for women and I initially had difficulty finding information about it on line. It usually afflicts men. I first had to look at what could have caused this. I have had several surgeries to my lower abdomen, I have lifted weights for many years, and I ...

This week I made a special connection with one of my patients. There are just those people who you feel instantly drawn towards. I could tell by looking into his eyes that he was in a lot of emotional pain. He was so kind, honest, and open that the conversation just flowed. He used to work as a phlebotomist so he was patient and helpful with ...

I grew up in Kansas City, on both the Kansas and Missouri sides of the state line and smack dab in the middle of Tornado Alley. One of my earliest memories is of my dad, my three older brothers and me scrambling to get out of our station wagon and getting down into a ditch along the side of a highway to try and protect us from a twister ...

Anyone who has ever CT scanned a patient who is allergic to the IV contrast knows how scary it can be. Previously, I only dealt with inpatients so I could confirm with the nurse that the patient had in fact received the allergy prep medications. Now I am working almost exclusively with outpatients. This week I had five patients who were ...

The tough job market continues to affect me. I got hired at the VA as a fee-based CT technologist on a part time basis. I was told that I would work 5 days a week every other week until the two full-time open positions were filled. This was supposed to take me at least into the fall of this year. In an unprecedented turn of events, the usually ...

As radiology departments and hospitals in general are going digital, there is more and more that many of us don't know. We are being marginalized because we may not understand the entire picture. As all devices in hospitals talk to other devices, the people running the show are either in the IT department or from consulting companies under ...

At my previous job I worked in a busy ER doing CT and didn’t have to learn to start IVs. We didn’t call for patients unless they already had a line established. I got good at telling which IVs were power injectable and which ones wouldn’t hold. At my current job the majority of my patients are outpatients so they all need an IV. I have been ...