It's hard to believe it's been a month since my last post. My intention was to blog regularly, not on a monthly basis! So, I'll see what I can do this coming month about checking in more often.
I actually had a comment on my last entry - that's so cool! And, you're so right - it's a world of difference between doing this in school with an instructor and doing this out in the real world.
The hospital I'm in is new - it opened last September. The ER has a Swissray and the core unit upstairs has one Swissray room and two rooms with Phillips equipment and a Fuji CR system. No film! We still have film at school, although we also have a Fuji CR and we also will be getting a Swissray, probably sometime later this year.
I think one of the hardest things for me to get used to was dealing with everything that comes attached to a patient - oxygen tubes, IV lines, catheters, wires and telepacks. Sometimes it's a challenge to get the patient disentangled enough so they can get up and get their images taken!
By the end of March, I'm supposed to have 11 certs and 9 comps. I don't know how other programs do it but in mine I have to cert in a certain amount of exams per category (chest, upper extremity, lower extremity) before I can start comping and then I need to comp 3 in each category. So far I've certed on the PA/Lateral chest, portable chest, ankle and foot. It's been somewhat slow-going - like I said, the hospital is new and even though the department is fairly busy, it's not always busy with the exams that I can do. But, I'll get there eventually!
Later this week I'll be heading to Las Vegas for the ACERT (Association of Collegiate Educators in Radiologic Technology) conference. There seems to be a wide variety of interesting topics that will be covered. I'm especially looking forward to Physics for the Fun of It and The Practice of Medicine in the Early 20th Century: Everyday Horrors in the Home.
1 comment:
The comps will definitely start rolling soon. We don't have 'certs' but we have what is called 'pre-comps' which are basically the same thing. We have to pre-comp a certain number of exams for EACH exam and then a single master competency finalizes it. I only collected 3 master comps during my first semester. We got tossed into clinical right away, and we aren't allowed to even start pre-comps until we have passed off on a set of exams in our positioning class lab, so the opportunities for comps weren't great. Now that I'm further along, comps are coming more quickly. I have 10 or 11 comps so far this semester, and they do come quickly in an orthopedic office. I'll be back in a hospital again during the second half of the semester...
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