Clinicals

As many of you know, St. Johns hospital was destroyed in the tornado. However, they were fortunate enough to reopen their doors, surprisingly, with in a week after the catastrophic event. The hospital started out in a tent with some equipment recovered from the old hospital. Not long after the tent hospital went up, a temporary building was built downhill as a clinic site. Now, there is a temporary building up where the tent hospital was. The rooms are very tiny, but, it is much nicer than the tent. Their x-ray machines, for both sites, are portables that were recovered from the remnants of the old St. Johns building. Luckily, the machines are still in well working condition. One is actually a semi- newer machine. It is a digital radiograph which uses a flat panel reader that sends the picture directly to the computer to read. Think of it sort of like a digital camera. Only, the SD card in the camera stores the picture while the flat panel is actually cleared after it is transferred to the computer. The other is as older version that is quite a bit more weathered. Although it still works and takes very acceptable pictures, it is much more difficult to maneuver. They do not have the nice wall bucky, a big square object that holds the reader and enables the tech to easily position the patient, and they do not have the floating table top with the bucky under it. It is much more difficult, as a beginner student who is t still trying to learn all of the techniques to properly position the patient and get the quality needed for a good x-ray picture. However, it is still possible to do, just more difficult than one would like it to be. Because it is more difficult better technique must be used. Because better technique must be used, the tech will become a better x-ray tech for it. It will be a better experience. It will be a neat to opportunity, and it will be an interesting thing to put on a resume. Knowing how tough and frustrating it may possibly be, it still cannot diminish any bit of the excitement of stepping out into the clinical world. The school, Missouri Southern State University, actually s the newer, better equipment to use. It is nice to be able to use that and it is very handy to be able to easily practice convenience of Alan, the director of Radiology and the only teacher for first year Radiology tech students, whenever help is needed. It is also nice to have the relaxed environment and the company of fellow students. However, as nice as all of that is, it is also somewhat inconvenient as well because at Missouri Southern, practice is done on other students, who understand what to do. At the hospital setting, it is done on real patients, who are in pain and do not just know what is going on and more often than not are unable to do what you need them to do.