On March 19th I had the pleasure of doing a job shadow with Cindy Smith. The experience was very eye-opening and I had a great time. While I was there she and her partner showed me around Mobile Molecular Imaging. When I first walked in they placed an IV on a patient, but because she was distracted by me it proved to be a bad stick, and the fluid used to show irregularities on the MRI spilled out. After that, they took me into the computer room to show me the production of the MRI. They showed me how the black were the irregularities, most of the time cancer lobes or damage from smoking, and how to change the images from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. The 3D models were much more defined and also allowed you to get a holistic look at the image as it was a compilation of the thousands of images the machine took. After getting the patient out and explaining the scan to me Mrs. Smith showed me around the place. The building is divided into four main spaces. The first is their radiological technician room which is used to examine the images taken by the MRI/CT scanner in the adjacent room. On the other side of the hall was the place where people getting radiation treatments receive injections and sit down. This was probably my favorite room. It contained the coolest things including boxes of just straight-up radiation injections. These boxes are very heavy and use about 4 layers of lead incasing to contain two normal-sized injections of radiation. In this room was also an item that looked very vintage, it was a radiation detector that beeped with the greater radiation it detected. As she uncased the injections it very rapidly started beeping much faster than it did before. The last device in this room was the incasing used to dispose of the needles which also came with a built-in radiation detector that provided radiation with an easier-to-read numeric value. Last but not least is the room in which the radiologist overseeing the practice stays. This room was very engaging to me, but not medically. In here there was a putting green, bookshelves, and a pull-up bar. Mrs. Smith told me because the radiologist over the practice is very young and enjoys golf, and all I could think was, “Yup that’s definitely me!”
They also showed me how to maneuver people into the machine
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