Tuesday, July 28, 2009

You roll your eyes at the patient coming in for a chest xray who insists on taking off every piece of metal on their entire body EXCEPT for the underwire bra with the 4 metal clasps in the back because they didn't think it would be in the way.

You have copies of xrays of strange things you get out at parties.

You watch medical TV shows and you comment on everything that pertains to xray (eg. the upside down KUB on the viewbox in the back of the ER trauma room or the perfect lateral chest xray of the guy who is lying flat on his back and is not allowed to raise his arms or the bomb in his chest will go off.)

You know that beauty is not only skin deep... nice odontoid, great zygomatic arches.

Your patient looks at you funny when you say to another tech, "hey did you see the picture of the awesome sunrise I just took?"

You believe a roll of tape can fix any problem.

You could have swore you put your lead marker on the bucky but then you look at the toddler and they are chewing on something hard.

You assist a radiologist with an LP and the doctor instructs the patient to bear down like they are having a bowel movement and you resist the urge to bust out laughing when the patient lets one rip.

You call out "XRAY" and everybody runs in the opposite direction because they don't have a fancy lead apron like you that protects you from the harmful rays.

A female nurse refuses to wear lead when holding a patient because "they are done having babies." Well, are you done with your thyroid also?

A patient comes in to the ER for an xray of their leg because their femur is protruding through the skin and they ask "Is it broken?" and you reply with "I am not at liberty to say."

You get blamed for the 4 hour wait in the ER when you finished your xray in 5 minutes but the lab results took more than an hour to get back.

You tell the patient who has a nose ring, 10 piercings in each ear, both nipples pierced, and tattoos all over their body that you are going to need to start an IV in order to inject contrast and they say they are scared of needles.

You have to explain to every patient that you do not read the xrays, the radiologist who makes the big bucks reads the xrays, you just take pretty pictures.

You can't count how many times a patient asks "why are you taking an xray of the left side of my chest, its the right side that hurts?"

A patient asks after you have taken their xray "what do you see?" and you say "ummmm....BONES!"

You know where the tip of the PICC and the tip of the Dobhoff tube should be for optimal use but the person who placed these devices DO NOT!!!!

You cringe every time someone calls you a NURSE! (We have an easier job and get paid the same!)

You are left speechless when you ask a patient "how long they have had their pain" and their response was "oh, about 3 years!" -WTF!!!! And now you think that at 10:30pm it is finally time to get it looked at!

When you believe that a little tape can solve any positional problem.

oinked on 3:03 PM