Road to Radiography

 

After a long night (and weekend) of studying, I took my first test in the RAD-110 course this morning at 10am.  I’m not sure when I’ll get my results back, but I think I did extremely well on the test.  There were no questions that I had to think twice about.  There were also two opportunities for extra credit.  I know I got one of them right but I’m not sure about the other.  I may get some partial extra credit out of it anyway.  I’m expecting an A on the test, but I’m just not sure where I’ll fall between the 93 and potential 104 mark. 

So, the ‘first test’ jitters for this class are over.  I, as predicted, was basically over-prepared for the test, which is not a bad thing, but now I know a lot more about what to expect and can get down to business.  A week or so ago when our instructor said “My tests are hard,” we didn’t really know what to think.  I have been through two semesters of HARD Anatomy & Physiology tests, so I just asked myself how hard this one could really be. 

I spent the rest of the day out in the sun photographing a golf tournament…

Tags: 1st Semester, RAD-110 by John Setzler
No Comments »

Today’s lab in Rad Intro / Patient Care was some procedural techniques for moving from a wheelchair to the x-ray table. In this exercise, we were working with students who pretended to be in need of assistance. These simulated patients were not immobile, but just in need of assistance. We practiced the process of assisting them onto the table from a wheelchair, and then back into the wheelchair from the table. In our next lab for this class, we will be working with simulated immobile patients who can not move themselves.

Tags: 1st Semester, RAD-110 by John Setzler
No Comments »

 

The training and lectures we have had recently on infection control must be sinking in for me better than I had expected.  I was out at a local high school Friday night covering a game for the newspaper, and something strange happened.  I was walking down the sideline during the break between the first and second quarters of the game.  When I got to the other end, I noticed that I had blood on my right forearm.  I wasn’t cut anywhere and couldn’t figure out where it came from.  My only conclusion was that I had been splashed by one of the football players somewhere along my journey down the sidelines.  Several recent terms heard in lecture started rushing through my mind…. AIDS, HIV, Hepatitis B, and a host of other nasty words like Bloodborne Pathogens… Lions and Tigers and Bears… Oh My!  Needless to say, I just stopped what I was doing and thought about this situation for a moment.  I wasn’t sure how I wanted to handle this.  I didn’t have a rag, napkin, or anything else to remove the blood, and I didn’t just want to wipe it off with my hand.  I decided to go visit the EMS team who was working this game and get them to remove the blood for me.  They were happy to do so.  They cleaned me up and sent me on my way :)  I told them I wasn’t injured but I just didn’t know where that blood came from…

I wonder if people in the medical profession sometimes become complacent with regards to personal protective equipment.  After thinking about my first two clinical sessions, I haven’t seen an RT put on a pair of gloves yet.  I put on a pair before I did my first x-rays on Thursday.  The RT who was supervising me didn’t question me or ask me about that either.  My instructors have been hammering this in, so I think I’ll try my best not to slip when it comes to protective equipment.  It will take me a few moments longer to put on gloves or a mask when I need them, but I think it will be worth it…

Tags: 1st Semester, RAD-110 by John Setzler
1 Comment »

Today’s lab was a lot of fun. We started out by getting checked off on our film processing requirements for the semester. Since we won’t encounter film requirements in any of our clinical sites, we aren’t going to spend a lot of time studying that technique. We will be doing it in our lab from time to time, but beyond that, digital seems to be taking over. Being in the dark room was interesting. It’s challenging to get the film out of the film bay in the dark, even though the safe light (red) is on. I think if I had been in the darkroom with that light for about 10 minutes or so, I would have been able to see a lot better. I wasn’t in there long enough for my eyes to adjust to the environment.

During the second half of lab, we did some experiments to show the effects of scatter radiation. Under normal circumstances, scatter radiation is the ONLY radiation that radiographers would be exposed to. We should never be exposed to the primary beam. When radiation is applied to a patient, one of three things will happen… 1) it will be absorbed in the body 2) it will be transmitted through the body or 3) it will be deflected by the body. The deflected x-rays create what we call scatter radiation.

We placed a dummy skull on the x-ray table for this test. We put the image receptor in the bucky under the table and another receptor vertically on the table beside the skull, but outside the collimation area on table. The object was to see how much of this film placed outside of the beam area got exposed by scatter radiation. When we collimated to the entire skull and made a picture, the film to the side was heavily exposed by the scatter radiation. On the second test, we collimated tighter to only expose a 5×5″ area of the skull. The smaller collimation area didn’t expose the film nearly as much as the larger. On the final test, we placed a piece of the rubberized lead protection on the bottom half of the film cassette beside the skull. In that result, there was no visible exposure behind the lead protection area.

This experiment was a simple demonstration of scatter radiation and why we need to protect ourselves from it. Scatter radiation has lost a lot of its energy, but the cumulative effects of it can be harmful. During the class before lab, we discussed the inverse square law, which wasn’t completely new to me. In photography that law is used in a studio environment when using studio lighting. Changing the distance between the light and the subject has an almost identical effect in photography. The intensity of the light (assuming the power doesn’t change) follows the same rules as x-ray.

Tags: 1st Semester, RAD-110 by John Setzler
No Comments »

This is a “Tobacco Hornworm” that I just happened to notice munching on my cayenne pepper plant while I was watering this afternoon. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make a quick photo of him…

I took my first test on Friday. This was a Medical Terminology test, which is the online portion of my RAD-110 class. I wasn’t sure what this test would look like or what to expect at all, but it wasn’t too bad. It was all multiple choice, matching, and fill in the blank. The test was made up of 100 questions in total. I made a 98 on the test. I got tripped up on, what I consider to be, a trick question, but after looking at my incorrect answers in detail, I can see where I went wrong. I can’t post the details of what I missed here yet, because I’m sure everyone hasn’t taken the test yet.

I have another test coming up on Tuesday in my Radiographic Procedures class. I’m gonna have to put some serious time into that one starting tomorrow… I’ll let you know how that one goes when it’s over. I always hate the first test I have in a new class. I won’t really know what to expect on future tests until I’ve had my first one. After that, it shouldn’t be so difficult. I just have to be over-prepared for the first one…

 

Tags: 1st Semester, RAD-110 by John Setzler
No Comments »

Augusta GreenJacket’s Bobby Felmy makes a head-first dive into third base against the Hickory Crawdads - Photo by John M. Setzler, Jr.

I started my journey along the Road to Radiography this morning as my fall semester classes began at 10am. My community college has a record enrollment this semester with just over 5000 students. THIS was the first problem I encountered when I arrived at school this morning. I’m glad I got to campus about 20 minutes early, because all the parking lots were stuffed full. As the case would be, I found a parking spot, but it was on the far opposite side of campus from my classes. I guess it’s about a 1/3 mile hike from where I parked to my building. That’s not so bad normally. I can use the exercise, but it was 93 degrees when I got to school. During my last two semesters, I had classes at 7am, and parking was never an issue. I usually arrived on campus around 630am and had my pick of prime parking spots. Despite the huge parking hassle, I still made it to class with about 5 minutes to spare. I have a rolling book bag, so the trip across campus wasn’t that bad… just hot.

RAD-110 - Rad Intro & Patient Care

My 10am class is taught by Bruce James. The first day of class is never very difficult. We received the course syllabus and photocopies of all the physical and immunization records that we turned in before classes started. One of my clinical sites requires all that information, so I need to make sure I get it delivered to them around mid-September (makes a mental note to add that to his calendar). The RAD-110 course also includes Medical Terminology, rather than having that as a separate class. The Medical Terminology portion of this class will be conducted online, and it’s basically self-paced and self-taught with the textbook we purchased and the tutorial CD ROM included with it. Bruce stressed that staying on schedule with that program is important. Bruce’s MO for teaching is using PowerPoint presentations. All of the presentations are available online, so I need to go download those so I’ll have them on file here for study purposes.

Today’s class discussion was “Infection Control & Aseptic Technique.” For the most part, this discussion was terms and definitions, along with discussion of the Cycle of Infection.

RAD-111 - Rad Procedures I

My 11am class is taught by Teresa Fletcher. The first part of this class was much the same as the previous class. We received a syllabus and discussed the course schedule. Teresa also uses PowerPoint presentations, but as far as I know, those aren’t available online. She gave us printed copies of them. I need to make a note to ask her if we can get digital copies of those. Today’s lecture in this class was also a lot of terms and definitions dealing with body positioning and planes. The great thing about this lecture is that very little of it was new. Most of it was covered in my Anatomy & Physiology classes from the last two semesters.

Half of my class has the 3-hour lab for this class on Monday (today) and the other half has the lab on Tuesday (tomorrow). I’m in the Tuesday group, so my Monday is rather easy with a 10-Noon schedule.

Daily Objective:

I have a lot of free time today since I’m not working tonight. My objectives for today are to get the online orientation and biography completed. I also want to work through the first week’s assignment in the Medical Terminology book. I have reading assignments from both classes that I will start on, and I’ll make my study flashcards for everything that we have covered so far.

Tags: 1st Semester, RAD-110, RAD-111 by John Setzler
1 Comment »