Evaluating my Progress
I’m sorry for not having a lot of time or initiative to post to the blog lately, but I have actually been busy. I’m going to start posting more regularly now though. I started this blog with the intention of posting frequently, and I’m not going to let that slide. I’m not that far away from the end of Radiography school and this journal of my trip will be worth something to me one day.
Today, I want to talk about a couple of things. To start with, I have been evaluating my overall progress in clinical to see where I really stand on my requirements for graduation next May. In the greater scheme of things, I only need 13 more comps to complete my clinical requirements. That comp list is not going to be particularly easy to complete though. The good thing is that I can simulate up to 8 of those in the lab at school if I don’t encounter them in my clinical rotations. Of those 13 comps I still need, 10 of them are required comps and the remaining 3 are electives. The 10 required comps on my list are as follows, and the bold ones are the ones I expect to get the opportunity to do in clinical:
- Ribs
- Humerus
- Skull Series
- Paranasal Sinuses
- Trauma C-Spine
- Crosstable Lateral Hip
- Barium Enema
- Portable Abdomen
- Pediatric Chest
- Trauma Shoulder
I am not sure about the Rib exams. I think I have seen only two of these during my clinical experience. I’m getting some humerus opportunities in my current orthopedic office rotation, so maybe I’ll get it comped soon. I had an opportunity to comp that procedure today and missed it. I have actually missed it twice in my current rotation for stupid reasons. The first opportunity was botched because I forgot to put my marker on the bucky. The second was botched because my patient didn’t hold her hand in the proper position after I positioned her and my external rotation ended up being a neutral, and I had to reshoot it. I haven’t seen an order for a skull series since I have been in this program. I did get the only required pre-comp on the paranasal sinuses this summer, but I still need to see another order for that before I can get the comp. I will comp the trauma C-spine in a couple weeks when I do my second shift rotation. I haven’t seen a cross-table lateral hip opportunity yet either. The barium enema was a study I wanted to get comped this summer, but couldn’t for a host of reasons that I’ll save for later :) I will comp that study in the second half of this semester when I return to an outpatient imaging center. I also hope to comp the portable abdomen while I’m doing my second shift rotation. I might get lucky and see a pediatric chest order while I’m in the outpatient center later this semester as well. The trauma shoulder might show up on my second shift rotation also, so we’ll see how it goes.
I’m going to save another topic for my next post. I want to discuss some issues I’m having in my current orthopedic office rotation that is making life difficult for me…