BE and L-Spine Revisited
Today was another rather slow day in clinical. I only logged 10 procedures today, which isn’t bad, but it’s not enough to keep me busy. There were four barium enemas on the schedule again today, so I was looking forward to getting some more experience in that exam. The funny thing about them was that the first three were not performed. I did the KUB scout x-ray on each of them, and the radiologist sent each of them home for another day of prep because they weren’t cleaned out properly. One of the patients told us that her doctor said she could eat cottage cheese during the prep process, so she had eaten plenty of it. I asked one of the other techs about this and she told me that this particular doctor had a reputation for that. I find that to be quite unfortunate for the patient. One of the other patients had followed all the provided instructions for the cleansing process except the one about not eating. He had used the proper laxative regimen, but kept right on eating during the process. I can’t remember what the third patient’s reasoning was. We did get to do the fourth one though, and it went without a hitch. The patient wasn’t completely cleaned out, but the radiologist wanted to do the exam anyway.
I had another shot at an L-Spine today, and I missed it yet again. One thing I do know is that my marker placement is no longer an issue. This particular patient had trouble with the LPO. My RPO was perfect and I’m not entirely sure why I couldn’t get him in the LPO position. I thought I had him positioned properly and I suppose there is the possibility that he could have moved after I positioned him. He was over rotated, so that image had to be taken over again. Maybe I have been spoiled by my lab at school. When we were learning the L-Spine routines, I had a 45-degree foam block wedge that I could use to get this position. I don’t have that luxury in this clinical site.
We have a test in RAD-122 in the morning that covers film processing and sensitometry, so I gotta get back on that now…
Discussion Area - Leave a Comment