Okay, I grew up with a Radiologist for a father, so my view might be a little skewed. Over my 20 plus years in Medical Imaging, I have had the opportunity, and sometimes privilege, to work with many great “Rads”. I have also worked with some very challenging Rads. My dad was my measuring stick for many many years. Every singe technologist LOVED him. When he asked them to train me, they were more than willing. I credit those technologists for teaching me their best practices. My dad treated every technologist as a valued member of staff. They were a part of his Rad-Family. Not all of the Rads were as respectful to staff as my dad was, and it was on full display every Christmas. The techs would make these amazing goodie baskets, and every year, they would give my dad his basket separately, because it was usually at least 2 times bigger than every other Rad. I must preface that this was in ‘the good old days” where we waited 90 seconds for the film to pop out of the processor. This was also before Finance started to drive Medical Imaging , and “productivity”. Amazing Rads: they want you to be your professional best, and will go out of their way to teach you. Again, I have been blessed in this department. When you, as a tech, are being encouraged to grow professionally, your work gets better. That work means the Rad gets a better study. It’s an endless positive feedback loop that only improves diagnostic accuracy, and improves Rad-to-Tech relationships. Great Rads: The Great ones still teach you, but not every interaction will be rainbows and unicorns. They get flustered; there are time constraints that keep them from teaching/training. RVU’s (relative value units) are the WORST thing for these Rads. They know they have production numbers to hit, and don’t always have time to help a tech. However, THEY TRY. They try to be approachable, they tell you what you did well, and how you might improve a study by thinking outside of the box. These Rads are golden in my eyes.
HOW DID YOU GRADUATE: I have only met 2 of these in my career. Both suffered from severe family based inferiority-complexes. These Rads can be deadly to your psyche, and your career. The worst one, I encountered within the first 3 years of my career. This Rad was NOT interested in making any tech better, or more efficient (I will call him Problem-Child (PC)). I think this Rad got a little joy putting me down in front of patients and in front of the other Rads. I have a story for you all. I was working in a small outpatient imaging facility that was adjacent to a hospital. The Rads were shared between the hospital and my site. At my site, we were not union, but the hospital techs were, so there was an issue with being considered a “scab”, but I digress. A new perinatologist (MD) had started, and a preemie had been born. This preemie was the only baby in the 2-bed NICU. The MD ordered a neonatal head. The hospital techs had never been trained. The Rads knew that I had been trained to do neonatal heads, so they came to me and asked me to do this preemie’s scan. I of course agreed. I went to the NICU, met one of the hospital techs and started training her while I scanned. Over the course of this 1 preemie’s stay, I had trained 2 of the hospital techs in heads and preemie renals. PC was talking to the Rads about “how amazing” the hospital techs were at doing neonatal heads. He was so effusive with his praise. Then, the Rads burst his bubble, and told PC that I had trained the hospital techs. OH THE HELL THAT ENSUED. PC demanded that PC be allowed to RETRAIN the hospital techs because now their imaging was beyond horribly sub-par. It gets better; behind PC’s back, the Rads had me train the Imaging Center sonographers, as well as the rest of the hospital techs. The IRONY?! ALL of the techs that I trained were allowed to do neonatal heads, I was FORBIDDEN. It was quite an amusing situation.
I would like to add Radiologists, as a whole, I think are good people. The issue with Rads and Sonographers is that there has to be an unusually high level of TRUST. Moreso than any other modality. I think mainly this is due to the “live” nature of what we do. Plus, even on the BEST DAY EVER, you all have that one exam that looks like a really bad Rorschach test (the one you hand off and freely admit “I got nothing’ before walking away). If the Sonographer misses something, the Rad has no idea. The Rad has to TRUST that you, the Sonographer, are doing everything in your human power to give the Rad any and every image he/she may need. I would rather give the Rad waaaaay too much information than not enough. At one hospital that I worked at, the PACS system had just been upgraded to allow Cine clips: OH MY HEAVEN, I lost my marbles for a while. If I had ANYTHING that I questioned, I sent a Cine clip, sometimes (ok most of the time) a lot of Cine clips. One time, my Rad said to me “I think you could have sent me a couple more Cines of the ‘XYZ'(sorry HIPAA). I don’t know that I’m getting your point.” (still love that Rad, and would do anything for this Rad) Growing up Medical, I think about my images a little differently. The big questions in my head are “will this add to the patient story that I am giving the Rad”, “if I skip this image, will I potentially miss something the Rad will think is important”, if I had to go to court to defend this case, would I be satisfied with my study”. More is more, I know, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I have a story for that one too.
I would LOVE to hear your stories.
