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 ...

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 ...

Jobs are difficult to get these days and it end ups being more about who you know, not what you know. I have my foot in the door at the VA because of a former colleague. She actually helped me get my first CT job right out of school and now she’s helping me out again. I guess I’ve impressed her somewhere along the way. This is an important ...

It is a well known fact in the radiology community that the amount of radiation from a CT is much higher than that of a traditional x-ray. Doctors working in emergency rooms order numerous CT scans each day hoping to diagnose, save lives, and avoid law suits. Working in CT in a busy ER there is never a shortage of patients who have orders for ...

When I graduated from x-ray school I was eager to take a job where I could work with students. I am a teacher at heart and fresh off the student wagon I hoped I could make a difference in someone’s education like so many folks had done for me. For this past year and five months this hasn’t been possible because of my schedule. Most students rotate ...

You can’t go anywhere without seeing someone looking down at their handheld smart phone. Whether we're texting, playing a game or surfing the Web, many of us have become completely dependent on this technology. It has many practical uses; one of the newest is mobile applications in radiology. A radiologist can access a patient’s current exam, ...

It’s not every day that I get to be on the other side of the X-ray table or scanner. This week, I went for a mammogram and got to do just that. I was going to tell the technologist what I do for a living but decided not to. She was nice, but she did not make me feel at ease when I entered the room. She didn’t do several things that I try to always ...

Working all of my hours on the weekends leaves me a good deal of time to have fun and get numerous things done during the week. I especially love this because there are less people to contend with, and most places and stores are much less crowded. Also, I can spend more time with my best friend, who just had a baby and is just back at work part ...

This past weekend, I saw the most traumas since I started back in July. We usually have one or two a shift, but this was out of control. It is the first time that the consequences of this type of tragedy really hit home for me. This was made worse by having multiple teenagers/young adults involved in a good number of these accidents. ...

As a student, if you have a chance to choose a final rotation while in school, go out on a limb and try out an area that you are weak in or know little about. This is what prompted me to choose CT. I only had a quick, six-week rotation through CT, and it was cut short by the end-of-the-year holidays. My didactic training in CT was also ...