Day One
Today was my first day working in the diagnostic radiology department. Neither of my mentors worked today so I spent time working with the other radiology technicians. I observed many x-rays in the ER, and I was taught the basics of how to set up the x-ray camera and what to specifically look for on the image when it appears. Because radiation exposure is harmful to the body, I stood behind a wall when the image was being captured where I got to watch a computer with the image on it. Today was a rather slow day, so there were not a lot of appointments in the radiology department, there was definitely more action in the ER. Still not that much though. They perform chest x-rays the most because there are so many different things you can see on a chest x-ray. You can see the heart, the lungs, the ribs, the trachea, the bronchial tube, etc. Patients can be diagnosed with conditions and diseases that concern the heart, and other conditions such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, emphysema, and the flu.
Day Two
Today one of my mentors named Becca came in in the morning, but she had to leave in the afternoon for a surgery. Before she left, she did a hand x-ray on a patient that was checking for rheumatoid arthritis. In the image, Becca pointed out his joints which had arthritis and I noticed they were blurry, and not as structured as the other joints. It was really interesting to see how obviously different the joints looked. Today was also unfortunately a slower day than usual, so there was a lot of sitting around which allowed me to work on my project and talk with the technicians about certain x-ray images. A few of the technicians showed me images of broken bones on the computer which was really interesting as well. They showed me how important it is to get more than one view of the body part because from one view you could see nothing, and from another view you could see a fracture. One patient today had hit her head the day before, so she came into the ER to get a C-spine x-ray. The C-spine is the cervical spine, which has to show the first 5 vertebrae’s of the spine. From the lateral view, the cervical spine is supposed to be a little curved. In the x-ray however, the girl’s spine was straight. Celeste, who is one of the x-ray techs told me that when the cervical spine is straight, the patient most likely suffered from whiplash. The muscles in the neck contract during whiplash, which then makes the vertebrae’s contract as well to be straight.
Day Three
This morning I met my other mentor named Dusty and she wanted me to go look at the other modalities located in diagnostic radiology. The modalities of diagnostic radiology consists of x-ray, mammography, ultra sound, MRI, Cat-Scan, Nuclear Medicine, cardiovascular stress tests, and a few more. Today was a lot different but also extremely insightful and interesting. I sat in on 2 stress tests and an echo, which is an ultra sound of the heart. A stress test is a test they do to patients with heart issues. It is a cardiovascular fitness test where the heart rate is monitored by RKG’s. There are certain types of abnormal heart rates and these stress tests are usually done on older patients with heart conditions. In an echo, you can measure the size of the tubes in the heart and the patient’s amount of blood flow.
Day Four
Today I watched my first portable x-ray. You take a portable x-ray is when the patient is in such a bad condition that they can’t get up to make it to the x-ray room. There are two portable x-ray machines in the radiology department and the technicians take the machines over to the patient’s room. The tech that I was with told me that the patients are the priority, so we have to come to them if they can’t come to us, even if it’s not very convenient. The woman got a chest and abdominal x-ray. There was also another chest x-ray in the radiology department of an older man with chest pain. In the man’s x-ray, there was a lot of dense white fluid that appeared on the screen around his lungs. Dusty told me that he is having trouble breathing because of how much fluid is in his chest. On an average x-ray, you wouldn’t see a lot of white dense fluid, because oxygen has a very low density so it would appear darker. Today I also looked over a few x-rays on the technician computer and found a few that I can potentially use for my project. At the end of the day, I met with one of the radiologist doctors and he spoke about PETT scans that are done in nuclear medicine. These scans show radioactive parts of the body which show up very dark. These radioactive parts can be your brain, your bladder, and most importantly cancer spots. These scans make it easier for doctors to find where the cancer is if there is any, which is very fast and efficient. I saw one man who has been a smoker all of his life, he had a black spot right on his lungs which means he had lung cancer.
Week One Update
This week has been a good start to my internship because I have definitely learned a lot about many different things like the science behind it all, the procedure set-ups, and the basics of a day in this workplace. I have seen many x-rays in the ER and in the radiology department, and I didn't realize how much math and critical thinking is required in a job like this. It is very intriguing being able to see how people work and function in a job like this, and how dedicated and passionate they are about their patient’s safety, wants, and needs. I've learned that the patient is the true first priority. I also love the variety of people that come in. As I said earlier this week, chest x-rays are done constantly in the x-ray lab, but the patients are always different. It's nice to get to know new people, and see new aspects of the same x-rays. The majority of the patients they get are older and usually sick, so you have to learn to be patient and adaptable. I think working in any part of the medical field, it is very important to learn these skills because they benefit you in all parts of life, not just your career. Unfortunately there was a very slow start to the week, but at those times it was nice being able to talk with the x-ray techs and meet with the radiologists who taught and showed me a lot of the science behind radiology. A few of the doctors showed me how they read x-rays, CT scans, MRI's, and Nuclear medicine scans. I loved being on the other side of the spectrum, instead of being the patient. So far, I'm happy I am interning here and I'm still confident that I want to go into the medical field.
Day Five
Today I worked with one of the radiologists named Dr. Walters and I watched him do a PICC line on a patient in the IR. PICC stands for peripherally inserted central catheter. In a PICC line, a long catheter is inserted into the patients vein, and it goes up through the arm and into the heart. With the PICC, it is much easier for the patient to get antibiotics into his blood stream and straight to his heart. I also watched Dr. Walters perform a spinal tap, where he inserted a needle into the cerebrospinal fluid. A spinal tap can be done for reasons like checking for bacteria in the cerebrospinal fluid, looking for bleeding in the brain, or to diagnose the patient with diseases like Lyme disease and multiple sclerosis. Today was very interesting because I got to see something new, which made me even more excited to have a career in the medical field.
Day Six
In the morning I saw a chest x-ray of a young woman who was experiencing severe pain. In the x-ray it showed her lungs were detached from her chest. This can be very painful and if the entire lung gets detached, it will actually collapse. I also watched an interesting ultra sound that is done on infants to check if their hips are in their joints. Children can be born with dislocated hips, which is called Dysplasia so this ultra sound procedure is done to check for that. Later in the day I went over to the MRI and CT scan department where I met with the CT tech. She didn't have any patients, so she showed me some of the patient files on the computer and showed me how to understand a CT scan and what the doctors are trying to look at.
Day Seven
Today I mostly focused on my project plan and got some advice from the other technicians. They said it's better to have an interesting visual and a presentation so the audience can be entertained. X-ray, ultra sound, MRI, and CT are all super interesting to look at so I found some files from a couple of the different modalities to use. I worked on my mentor interview questions so I think I'll be able to interview Dusty either today or tomorrow. Working on my project with the techs there was beneficial because I had their help and they gave me a lot of advice.
Day Eight
Dusty, one of my main mentors showed me some surgery x-rays of a man that just got into a big car accident. He broke his femur, tibia, fibula, humerus, and hand, which were all open fractures. He had to have approximately 5 surgeries done on each of those bones which took almost 8 hours. I'm planning on using his x-ray images in my project because that shows how intense working in this department can be. Today I also got to see an Upper GI of a 9 month old baby. Upper GI's are very common in Fluoroscopy but I hadn't seen one yet on an infant, only on elderly patients. In an Upper GI procedure, the radiologist is usually looking at the patients esophagus, depending on the symptoms the patient says they are having, and the doctor's order. Barium is used as a contrast to look at the esophagus more clearly. It is a white thick liquid that the patient drinks, and in the x-ray images it shows up black. When swallowing the Barium, the radiologist is able to look at the stomach and esophagus a lot more clearly. Today I also interviewed Dusty.
Week Two Update
This week I was able to plan my project more with the help of the techs. I was able to complete my mentor interview and arrange a view parts of my exhibition visual. It is starting to look really interesting which I’m happy about. There are a lot of radiology tech students that come from San Juan Community College, so I also started working on a help sheet for the new student techs that will be coming in next year. I’ve been working with the college students a lot more this week and I think it would be very beneficial to the students that will be coming next year because their classes and real life hospital life are very different in comparison. I think they would be thankful if they had an easy starting guide to refer back to when they first start, but I’m not sure if I will make that part of my actual final project. The techs have been doing a lot of surgeries this week so that’s why I have been able to sit down and plan my project out a lot more while at work. When I went into the film room it was super interesting to see thousands of x-ray films laid out. There were so many different kinds of x-rays in there and such a variety of different placement of bones, and different diseases and conditions. I got to do more portable x-rays which are really challenging at times because you have to use a cassette. A cassette is a black film that they use on a portable machine. After you take the portable photo, you can’t check if you did it correctly until you get all the way back to your x-ray room where the cassette can be read. On Thursday, I was working with Dusty and one of the students, and we did a portable chest x-ray. After we came all the way back to the x-ray room, we found that the image was projected to high on the patient’s body. So, we had to walk back and re-take the image. Like I said, it’s pretty difficult to use the portable because retaking your image is harder than usual. This week has been pretty successful and I’m excited to see even more stuff next week.
Day Nine
Today a deceased patient had to be x-rayed which I thought was really interesting because I didn't know x-ray techs dealt with those sort of things. The patient had gun shot wounds in and around his abdomen so an x-ray was ordered to get a better view of the wounds. I chose to not observe that just because I wasn't comfortable with it and I wasn't used to seeing things like that either. I think it would be interesting to do that, but I chose to sit out of that today. On a lighter note, I was able to watch another spinal tap on an elderly patient before he got a CT scan. I also was able to observe a portable x-ray in the ICU, which stands for Intensive Care Unit. When a patient is in the ICU, they are not in a good condition so I stayed out of the room while the techs took the x-ray.
Day Ten
Today the diagnostic radiology department had a big potluck to celebrate St.Patrick's Day. It was fun to see how friendly everyone is and how many people actually work in this department. Today I learned that communication is a big factor in successfully working in this department, and the medical field. The techs always let everyone else know where they are going to be if they need to be reached which I've learned is very essential. I'm happy that I'm working on my communication skills well here so in the future I will be ready and more prepared.
Day Eleven
Today I watched my first surgery. The surgery that was performed was a lap coli, which is short for Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy. This is the removal of the gal bladder. It was extremely interesting to watch because of how relaxed yet professional the doctors were acting during the procedure. I'm very relieved that was my first surgery because I was't sure if I was going to get queezy. Thankfully, during a lap coli the incisions are small and quick so I could easily handle watching that. I have to admit I was pretty nervous going into the surgery area because of how intimidating it looked, but afterwards I was happy I got to see something like that at such a young age, and being able to experiment now is such an amazing opportunity.
Day Twelve
Today was my last day working in the radiology department and it's sad to go so soon! This morning I watched another PICC line which was even more interesting than the first one, and this one was done to make sure the patient was getting his medicines more efficiently rather than just through an IV. I'm so thankful to have met all of the wonderful people that work in the radiology department at Mercy, they are great people that I hope to be like when/if I work in this field.
Week Three Update
Reflecting back on my last week, I can definitely say I have grown a passion for this field of work and respect for the people that work in it. It takes a lot of patience and kindness to be successful in any job in the medical field, and it is obvious that these people have these traits. I’m happy to say I want to pursue a career in the medical field because I enjoyed this experience very much. At the end of my experience I was able to identify things that were wrong with a specific patients x-ray. I learned how many bones you need to have shown in your back and chest x-rays. I’m working on my visual piece for the exhibition which is a whole skeleton of x-ray images of the human body. It will be cool to see at a first glance and it will also be interesting for the audience to ask me questions about a certain image. It has been way harder than I thought to create this skeleton but I thankfully got over the hard part and I’m excited to see it become a finished product. I’m very thankful that I chose an internship here in x-ray because this has made me even surer that I want to be in the medical field because I love to help people when they need it and anatomy is so interesting to learn about and see. This experience has been surreal and I thank all of the people that took me under their wing.