Trauma Rotation

Yesterday was my first day in trauma rotation. What a blast. As you can imagine it was very fast paced. But what made it a good experience for me was that a couple of the techs let me do the positioning. I took my first AP shoulder xr yesterday. It was a trauma shoulder. I missed: I cut off the acromion. But it was like this, I'd position the patient in a way that my limited knowledge would permit and then the tech would make adjustments. What I found humorous was that sometimes I'd set up the patient and the tube perfectly, for a stretcher T-spine for example, and the tech would come in a make some adjustments. Several times they moved the tube and patient right back into the location I'd placed them.

It's amazing to me that I'm in such a terrific place. A graduate of my program introduced him self as an OR tech. He said you, meaning all the RT students in my program at this hospital, are going to be so far ahead of anyone else in your class, and by inference anyone in the entry level job market. That made me feel excited. I want to work there when I'm eligible

One of the techs, I'll call him Josh, typical of many trauma techs, told the two of us newbies stories to curl our toenails. One of the more tame stories involved a woman in small town beauty salon. Apparently she was sitting in a dryer chair. A significant distance away ,a boulder made its way crashing through the valley at a great speed. She was oblivious to the danger. The boulder crashed though the brick building of the salon a pinned the hapless woman still in the chair against the opposite brick wall.

Her upper leg was completely de-gloved; the tissue of the leg was completely removed. This conversation came under the category of things I learned not to do. My take on the story was that sometimes it just your time to have boulder pin you and your chair against a brick wall.

I know I'm so lucky to be where I am: A major metropolitan trauma center – the best community college RT program in the NW. I try to see both sides of every interaction. I don't always succeed, but it's my job to get in there. I try to give each patient something: a smile, a kind word, a brush of my hand to their brow when the pain is too intense, a warm blanket, and although I haven't tried it yet: a softly sung song. I have a calming countenance.

Many new RT grads go directly into CT, MR ect. Some of my fellow students entered this program because they weren't accepted to sonography school or med school. That burns me a bit as I had to wait a year for entrance. I can understand it, but it still bugs me. Radiography was my first choice field, my school was my first choice program, and my clinical was my first choice setting.

The key to successful patient interaction is communication and customer service. It helps the patient to explain the exam or ask if they have questions.

I know I'm being overly romantic not to mention hyperbolic, but I feel like ("like" is the key word here) I'm being initiated into a secret society entrusted to hold, maintain and share the chalice of sacred knowledge and the torch of illumination, as we, the ethical practicing acolytes, illuminate the darkness of the inner body with our diagnostic alchemy.

I'm smiling now. I've been smiling for a while now. Sure RT school is tough; I'm writing this as I prepare to for a five-hour study session; but I'm having much more fun than I could have imagined.