Software Upgrade

This week our entire MRI staff is in training because we have upgraded our software from 9.1 to 14.0. We got the upgrade at the end of December and it took several weeks for them to put the software in. I have been in MRI for several years and now it is like I am starting all over. This upgrade is great, however we have to do all scans differently now. The pictures are clearer, especially on MRI-Abdomen's. Once we get used to the new software and learn what all it can do, it will be great but for now it is giving me a headache like when I first started training years ago. We have scans now like, Merge, Cosmic, Propellar, Asset and other things I don't even know how to use yet. It will take time but once we get used to it everything will be great.

Unproductive Day

Today was a very different day in MRI. I have worked in MRI for several years, but this day in the department was very odd. Our 7am patient was an in house patient that came down for their MRI. The patient was unable to do the exam because the anatomy that we were to MRI was broken. The floor wanted us to do IV sedation so we could manipulate the part, however, our radiologist spoke with the ordering doctor and it got cancelled. The next in house patient we got down was claustrophobic and couldn't go in the machine, so we had to send them back upstairs. Our 9am patient was an oral sedation and we spent 2 hours waiting for the sedation to kick in and when it did it had the opposite effect on the child. He became very hyper. We couldn't do the exam. It is now 11am and we have yet to do one patient. We sent for one more in house patient before going to lunch. We got them done, but we had several repeats and some pictures had motion on them. We finally go to lunch, exhausted but from what? At 1pm, we get another in house patient down to do an abdomen MRI. The patient refused to go in the machine. We called the floor and the nurse came down to talk to the patient. She gave the patient medicine and it took us until 3:30 pm to get the exam done. We had several repeats, but we got it done. One shift and only two patients got done with an entire screen full of patients to do. MRI is very challenging and on some day's you feel like you are going around in circles, but I love working in MRI. You just have to take the good with the bad. There are very few bad days, but when they come it seems to come at full force.

Robyn's Introduction

Hi!  My name is Robyn Dilger.  I am thirty-seven and work at Owensboro Medical Health Systems.  I am going back to school to get my BS-Radiologic and Imaging Sciences CT/MRI.  I currently work in x-ray and MRI.  I have been working in OMHS for seven years and in MRI for 2 years.  I wanted to learn more about the modality of MRI because I love working in this area.  I hope to learn as much as I can with these classes and I hope it will help me with the boards later on.