Latest / Cat Scan Guru Podcast / EP. 78 The Real Reason You Feel Lost in CT: How to Fix It

Transcript

EP. 78 The Real Reason You Feel Lost in CT: How to Fix It · Cat Scan Guru Podcast

• 0:00
  In today's episode, we're going to be talking about the real
• 0:02
  reason you feel lost in CT and how to fix that.
• 0:07
  I get lots of DMS, lots of questions on technologists that
• 0:12
  are lost in CT. They're starting out, they've
• 0:15
  been in the modality 10 months, six months, 18 months, whatever
• 0:18
  the case is, and they just feel like they're fucking lost and
• 0:21
  they have no guidance and have nowhere to turn.
• 0:24
  So I decided to make this episode to kind of give you some
• 0:27
  really good pointers and some really good just tips so that
• 0:31
  you can take this away and put it and implement it into your CT
• 0:35
  training. Hello, hello, welcome back
• 0:38
  everyone. Welcome back to the podcast.
• 0:41
  Hope everybody's having an amazing week.
• 0:43
  Let me tell you, we just got like 2 days of freaking just
• 0:48
  inches and inches of snow here in Illinois, especially the
• 0:52
  Chicagoland area. So because I live outside of the
• 0:55
  city of Chicago, so it has been interesting.
• 0:59
  Plus my girls had to have a snow day and that just was not a lot
• 1:03
  of fun because it kind of throws off my routine and just, you
• 1:07
  know, my day-to-day things that I have to do when they're at
• 1:10
  school. So.
• 1:10
  But of course we have to adjust accordingly, right?
• 1:13
  As parents or just as individuals, you have to adjust
• 1:16
  accordingly. So yeah, so quick updates.
• 1:20
  So make sure you guys check out all the courses free checklist
• 1:24
  that I have. I have all my courses in school.
• 1:27
  So that is the platform that I'm using.
• 1:29
  I know I have used Udemy. I am in the process of moving my
• 1:33
  Udemy students into my school portal because I want to be able
• 1:37
  to house all the courses and all the lessons that I provide.
• 1:42
  So make sure you guys check those out.
• 1:45
  Plus I have an awesome 10 episode audio series and I'm
• 1:48
  going to be dropping some more stuff that's in in my school
• 1:51
  portal. So make sure you guys come in
• 1:53
  join that community and get in all those courses, especially if
• 1:56
  you need some guidance when it comes to your CT training.
• 1:59
  Also make sure you guys subscribe to the YouTube
• 2:02
  channel. I'm in the process of putting
• 2:03
  some more stuff on YouTube. I know it's been a challenge and
• 2:06
  The thing is, is that like I've come off of a stretch of five
• 2:11
  twelves and the holidays are coming up, so my schedule is
• 2:13
  going to be a little bit modified.
• 2:15
  So I'm going to try to get some more educational stuff on my
• 2:18
  YouTube channel because I know it has come from multiple
• 2:21
  requests and it has been asked and I am going to deliver.
• 2:24
  Also, make sure you guys follow on TikTok at the CAT Scan Guru.
• 2:27
  I post all my protocol videos. All those protocol videos are
• 2:30
  going to be on a playlist on my YouTube channel.
• 2:33
  So I'm gathering all those together to make sure that I
• 2:36
  provide that for you on the YouTube channel so you guys can
• 2:38
  binge that and watch that. So it's all in order, OK.
• 2:42
  Also, I'm working on something that is really big for CT
• 2:46
  Technologies. Now.
• 2:47
  I said this in my previous episode.
• 2:49
  I can't reveal what it is just yet because it's still in the
• 2:52
  works and there's some, you know, things and legalities and
• 2:56
  things like that that are going through this.
• 2:59
  So kind of have to keep it a secret for right now, but I will
• 3:03
  probably probably give you a little preview, but you have to
• 3:05
  follow me on TikTok to get that preview.
• 3:08
  OK? I'll probably put it on YouTube
• 3:10
  as well. So make sure you guys follow
• 3:12
  along for that. And then as soon as I have that
• 3:15
  ready to go, I will drop it here.
• 3:17
  I will drop it on TikTok and I will drop it on my YouTube
• 3:20
  channel. OK, So make sure you guys check
• 3:22
  that out. So let's get into today's
• 3:24
  episode. So in today's episode, we're
• 3:27
  going to be talking about the real reason you feel lost in CT
• 3:32
  and how to fix that. I get lots of DMS, lots of
• 3:35
  questions on technologists that are lost in CT.
• 3:39
  They're starting out, they've been in the modality 10 months,
• 3:42
  you know, six months, you know, 18 months, whatever the case is.
• 3:46
  And they just feel like they're fucking lost and they have no
• 3:49
  guidance and have nowhere to turn.
• 3:52
  So I decided to make this episode to kind of give you some
• 3:55
  really good pointers and some really good just tips so that
• 3:59
  you can take this away and put it and implement it into your CT
• 4:02
  training. So how do we get to this
• 4:06
  problem? So what I see is a lot of
• 4:08
  technologists walk in and they're hoping to just perfect
• 4:11
  every exam. OK, let's take a step back.
• 4:14
  Every exam is not going to be perfect because every patient
• 4:17
  isn't a walkie-talkie, textbook, ideal patient.
• 4:20
  Where I work, we get some of the sickest patients that you will
• 4:23
  see. And sometimes you get patients
• 4:25
  who are contracted, patients who you know, have fractures.
• 4:30
  They have all different kinds of things going on with them and a
• 4:34
  lot of times they're just not ideal.
• 4:36
  So you have to know how to work around that and know how to
• 4:39
  navigate all that. So I'm going to be giving you
• 4:42
  some tips on this. So you can't walk into the
• 4:44
  department thinking that you're going to hit every exam
• 4:47
  perfectly because things can happen.
• 4:50
  You know, poor cardiac output, IV issues, contrast enhancement
• 4:55
  wasn't that great. The IV infiltrated, you know,
• 4:59
  the images are really grainy, the patient moves, you know,
• 5:02
  there's all kinds of factors. So what we want to focus on is
• 5:05
  making sure there's repetition and there is consistency and
• 5:09
  making sure that you practice. Those are the most important
• 5:14
  things that you have to worry about.
• 5:15
  OK, now let's get to the root of that.
• 5:18
  What is the main cause of that? Well, I can tell you there's a
• 5:21
  few things and I know it's going to trigger the fuck out of some
• 5:24
  of you guys. 0 guidance, and I say this in a lot of podcast
• 5:27
  episodes, is that when it comes to guidance, what I mean is, is
• 5:31
  that there's a lot of text out out there that are becoming
• 5:35
  button pushers and they're getting trained by experienced
• 5:37
  texts that they're saying push this, push this.
• 5:40
  But no, we have to stop that practice and stop adopting that
• 5:44
  because we have to stop that because you're going to
• 5:47
  potentially put them in a very dangerous situation.
• 5:50
  So the root cause some of the time is 0 guidance, OK?
• 5:55
  Then the second part is is minimal onboarding.
• 5:59
  So what I mean by onboarding is when you're starting, it's not
• 6:03
  really getting a clear picture or like a checklist or
• 6:06
  something, like something structured to say, OK, this is
• 6:09
  what's happening, right? This is what's taking place.
• 6:12
  This is what we're going to learn.
• 6:14
  So this week, that's why I've provided a free eight week
• 6:17
  checklist, something that I put together that I feel that's how
• 6:20
  you should learn. It may not be adopted by
• 6:24
  everybody or it may not work for some people, but at least it's a
• 6:27
  guide to let you know, OK, this is how you should learn in your
• 6:31
  CT training. So that's a lot of the things
• 6:33
  that I've seen over the years where there is just very little
• 6:37
  onboarding and very little structure when it comes to
• 6:40
  training. Like there's no training
• 6:43
  programs in departments anymore. Because I know that used to be a
• 6:45
  thing. And I know where the facility I
• 6:48
  work at, we do put new text through a training program and
• 6:52
  making sure that they understand how to navigate exams and
• 6:56
  operate on their own. So that's kind of the things
• 6:59
  that I see are the root cause of why people may think that.
• 7:03
  You know, I feel lost. And This is why we have to give
• 7:07
  our texts more guidance. We have to make our onboarding
• 7:10
  process a lot stronger. We have to make sure that we
• 7:13
  create those structured training programs, whether it's 8 weeks,
• 7:17
  12 weeks, six weeks. I personally think 8 to 12 weeks
• 7:21
  is enough, especially for a newbie and a new beginner.
• 7:25
  When it comes to travelers, you know, I know that usually they
• 7:28
  give them like 2-3 weeks training.
• 7:30
  You should also have something separate set up for them because
• 7:33
  that helps them because this is a new facility, new policies and
• 7:36
  procedures, new protocols if they, if your site is different.
• 7:40
  So we have to be able to guide them with that.
• 7:42
  Now, how do we fix this? So my strongest recommendation
• 7:47
  is is when we're training out there, have the new tech or you
• 7:51
  the new tech that's listening, focus on one to two core exams,
• 7:55
  let's say, for example, a week. So if you're going to focus on
• 8:00
  head CTS, focus on that. You're going to focus on PES,
• 8:03
  focus on that because that's super important.
• 8:06
  And I know that sometimes, especially when you work like in
• 8:09
  a Level 1 trauma hospital like I do, it's hard to do that because
• 8:12
  you want to learn all the exams. But what I would say is just
• 8:16
  narrowly focus on those exams so that you can get the repetition,
• 8:21
  get the experience and know how to set them up properly.
• 8:24
  It's not about perfection, it's about making sure that you
• 8:27
  execute the exam properly, center properly, and get an
• 8:31
  optimal exam. So that is one way to fix it.
• 8:34
  And another way we can fix it is to have like a structured
• 8:37
  training program. Whatever it is, you know, it's
• 8:39
  very beneficial and it's very helpful.
• 8:42
  Another way is to stop with telling technologists to push
• 8:46
  certain buttons. They have to know the why
• 8:49
  they're going to do the exposure.
• 8:50
  They have to know exactly why they're administering contrast
• 8:54
  at this time or why they're initiating the scan and the
• 8:58
  injector at the same time. We have to have proper guidance
• 9:01
  with that. And that is one thing that I
• 9:03
  think it's really missing when it comes to training new
• 9:06
  technologists. And we really as a whole need to
• 9:10
  do a better job of that. OK, The next thing I'm going to
• 9:14
  ask is that you pair your training with some kind of
• 9:17
  structured program that's created at your site if it
• 9:20
  exists. Or you can download my free
• 9:23
  checklist and that'll kind of guide you on what you should be
• 9:26
  learning. You should be pairing those
• 9:28
  things together and then along with if you want to do like a
• 9:32
  cross-sectional anatomy book or you can do that.
• 9:35
  Make sure you take notes. I stress in every podcast
• 9:38
  episode, please take notes. Notes are very important.
• 9:41
  I could tell you that I have a crap ton of notebooks with all
• 9:46
  kinds of CT notes from every site that I've ever worked at,
• 9:49
  and sometimes I have to refer back to that and sometimes I
• 9:52
  still write notes to this day because sometimes I have to
• 9:54
  remember things. Your brain cannot remember
• 9:57
  everything. So I highly, highly encourage
• 10:00
  it. OK?
• 10:01
  Please stop waiting for perfect training.
• 10:03
  You're never going to be perfect at training.
• 10:06
  We all make mistakes for human and it's how you correct them so
• 10:09
  you don't do it again the next time.
• 10:11
  Make sure you build your own system because I can tell you, I
• 10:15
  work in a department where there's 25 to 30 techs.
• 10:18
  There's a lot of us, OK, we have our own system on how we set up
• 10:23
  the exam, how we execute the exam.
• 10:25
  But you know what? It doesn't matter how I set up
• 10:28
  my exam versus the next person. They set it up differently.
• 10:31
  As long as we get the same optimal exam and same result,
• 10:34
  that's all that matters. So make sure you build your own
• 10:36
  system, build your own flow, build your own speed.
• 10:39
  I don't expect a new tech to go ahead and go at the speed that I
• 10:42
  do. I want you to go at your own
• 10:44
  speed until you're comfortable and that you just adopt your own
• 10:48
  practice. So with that, make sure you guys
• 10:50
  grab my free checklist. That is just a guide to help
• 10:53
  you. So it may be helpful for some
• 10:55
  and it may be repetition to others.
• 10:57
  And if you want to go a step further, I have a ten part audio
• 11:01
  series that walks you through the concepts that I feel that
• 11:04
  you need to know. Everything will be in the show
• 11:05
  notes as far as that. So that is our episode for
• 11:09
  today. So I hope this was in cyclone.
• 11:11
  Make sure you share it with a technologist that needs to hear
• 11:13
  it and they don't feel lost in their CT training.
• 11:16
  OK? So thank you so much for joining
• 11:19
  me on this podcast episode and I will chat with you guys next
• 11:21
  week.