Latest / Cat Scan Guru Podcast / EP. 94 Why CT Still Feels Hard After Your First Year
Transcript
- 0:00Hello, hello. Welcome back everybody.
- 0:01Welcome back to the podcast. Hope you guys are having a
- 0:05wonderful week. My goodness, let me just tell
- 0:09you, I am ready for summer. And yeah, I am getting some
- 0:14ready. So if you guys don't follow me
- 0:16on TikTok or if this is your first time listening to my
- 0:20podcast. So I am Karina.
- 0:21I am a registered CT technologist.
- 0:24I've been a technologist for 20 years now and I drop all my
- 0:28knowledge. I do not get keep and I give you
- 0:31the best resources I can as far as my knowledge, my skills, my
- 0:36experience when it comes to CT because there's a lot of new
- 0:40technologists that are coming in to the modality that really need
- 0:43help. And so if we can just, you know,
- 0:47close the gap because there's a lot of gaps when it comes to
- 0:49training and there is really just a lack of adequate
- 0:54structure when it comes to CT training that I absolutely want
- 0:58to close the gap so that they you have the best training
- 1:02experience you can and have the resources behind you to have it.
- 1:06So what I'm talking about resources, I'm talking about the
- 1:08core CT protocols guide that I've created, which has been in
- 1:12a massive success for me, which is great because it is all my
- 1:17knowledge in 10 protocols and that I'm passing along to you.
- 1:20So you can get that as a hard copy or a digital copy.
- 1:23Also, I've, you know, released a CTE protocols pocketbook that
- 1:27you can put in your scrub pocket.
- 1:29So it's got about 16 protocols and you can take that with you
- 1:33as a reference while you're training.
- 1:35So all these, you know, materials are references.
- 1:38It does not replace your site's protocol or your radiologist
- 1:41recommended protocols. This is just merely, you know,
- 1:44references to guide you in your CT training.
- 1:47So you can be the best freaking technologist you can because we
- 1:50know you got this. So all those are available in a
- 1:53hard copy form and a digital form, plus you get 2 courses
- 1:57plus an audio series included in the purchase of both of those.
- 2:01Doesn't matter if it's a hard copy or a digital.
- 2:03So check out the show notes, there's a link.
- 2:05Also I've been asked about CE points.
- 2:08My course is counting for CEI do have one course.
- 2:11It's 4A SRTARRT approved course. It's ACT one O 1 basics course
- 2:19is through red CEU providers Link will be in the show notes
- 2:21for that if you need some CE points on that.
- 2:24It's one of the very first courses that I ever taught.
- 2:27And yeah, it was a little bit terrible.
- 2:28But hey, we all have to start somewhere, right?
- 2:31So make sure you guys check out the show notes for all the
- 2:34goodies in get your learn on. So let's jump into today's
- 2:39episode. So today's episode we're going
- 2:40to be talking about why CT feels hard after your first year.
- 2:44This is a topic that I can relate to so much because I know
- 2:49CT for me still felt hard after my first year and this was in
- 2:54what? After my first year?
- 2:56It was like 2004. I had already been scanning a
- 2:58year and it still felt hard. OK, so if CT feels hard even
- 3:04after a year, time is not the problem, OK?
- 3:07The problem is there's, you know, you have experience, but
- 3:12no structure. And I talk about this in every
- 3:14episode. I even talk about this in my
- 3:16TikTok videos that we need to have like better structure to
- 3:20close the gap on training because our training in CT, and
- 3:25I'm going to say this is really not adequate.
- 3:28It's not structured like it is an X-ray.
- 3:30It's basically well, you just learn and that's it.
- 3:34Or one of the comments that I have gotten on one of my TikTok
- 3:36videos that I made a response to is, is that students just want
- 3:41to sign off exams to take the registry.
- 3:43Well, hatte, just because you take the registry doesn't mean
- 3:49that your skills are competent. And that's a topic for another
- 3:53episode. So you know, there's experience
- 3:55without structure and we really need that structure.
- 3:57So when we don't have that structure, we feel behind and we
- 4:02feel like we're falling behind. We're comparing ourselves to
- 4:05other texts that seem to learn a lot quicker than some of us.
- 4:09Some of us need more time, right?
- 4:11And you start to plateau and you start to kind of feel like
- 4:16you're giving up on yourself. And that's exactly what we don't
- 4:19want. So time does not fix confusion
- 4:22because when you're confused, you're unsure, you don't know
- 4:26you know what to do next or how to execute something.
- 4:30Time is not going to fix that. Time will never fix that.
- 4:33OK. And when you understand that
- 4:36improves your confidence and that you repeat and repetition
- 4:41and practice. When you understand something to
- 4:44its fullest, you know, circle or just all the way around, it
- 4:48drives your confidence straight up and it makes you a better
- 4:51technologist. And so we have to make sure that
- 4:55these new techs have an understanding on the whys on
- 4:59certain exams, protocols and how we do things.
- 5:02And also continuing education is intentional.
- 5:05So you have to be intentional with that because you are
- 5:08responsible for your own continuing education.
- 5:11It is up to you to make sure that you continue learning
- 5:14because there's a lot of new stuff and a lot of latest and
- 5:16greatest and training things that are out there.
- 5:18So it's up to you to make sure you're intentional with keeping
- 5:22up with that. It's why we do continuing
- 5:24education credits, right? So it's up to you to make sure
- 5:27that you continue learning something because when you do,
- 5:30you grow faster, OK, you break out of this plateau, you start
- 5:34to understand the whys behind, OK, if I adjust my KV because of
- 5:41this, this is what happened. Or if I adjust my contrast
- 5:44timing because of this, this is what happens.
- 5:47Or if I don't center properly, this is what happens.
- 5:50So you start to grow and you start to critically think and
- 5:54think outside the box and break out of this plateau and be more
- 5:58confident in your skills. I always say it all the time.
- 6:01Repetition and practice makes you a better technologist.
- 6:04It's not about who's the fastest, who's more liked, who's
- 6:07this, who's that has nothing to do with that.
- 6:09It's how you execute your job. Because if you do it correctly,
- 6:13more people respect you that way and you grow your skill set and
- 6:16you become better. OK, So if you're tired of just
- 6:20getting by and saying, oh, OK, OK, well I'll just get by, well,
- 6:25this and that because you can't hide forever.
- 6:28Like I said, time does not fix confusion.
- 6:31It does not. OK, so if you're just tired of
- 6:34getting by and tired of just being frustrated and not
- 6:38understanding things, the protocol bundle versus if it's
- 6:41the guide or the pocketbook is your go to to help you out in
- 6:46your CT training. OK.
- 6:47And all that stuff is linked below.
- 6:49So I know this was a short episode.
- 6:51I like to make my episodes very bite sized for people so that
- 6:55you get the information you need and you can kind of think on
- 6:59some things on how you can improve during your CT training.
- 7:02So thank you so much for continuing to listen to these
- 7:06episodes. Without you guys, it would not
- 7:08be possible. So thank you so much for joining
- 7:11me on this episode and I will chat with you guys in the next
- 7:14episode.