First Day of Clinicals 12/13/2010

Today was the first day of my clinicals.  A day that I was both dreading and excited for.  Dreading because I am a bit of a shy person and am very uncomfortable in new situations.  Plus I had a pretty poor experience doing my clinicals for xray.  I was obviously excited though because this would be the beginning of real world scanning, which would be much different than the lab scanning.  On the first day I met with my clinical instructor who began my new student orientation.  I got to sit in on a few outpatient exams.  We then did a tour of the hospital and some boring paperwork to get things started.  She appears to be very helpful and eager to share her knowledge with me.  This is a huge change over what I had experienced doing my xray clinicals at Banner Mesa/Gateway.  The CI was for the most part very unhelpful and uninvolved. 

It was crazy watching her scan her first patient.  I believe that I watched her do venous doppler on lower legs.  She was ridiculously fast at scanning and controlling the machine.  It was very impressive for me and gave me something to strive for in the future.  During her scanning she also took time to explain some of what she was doing.  This I found to be both very interesting and helpful to me. 

I also got a chance to meet some of the other sonographers, who all appear very friendly and helpful.  I am hoping this will be a much better overall experience than I have had in the past.  I can't wait until I am able to get more hands on experience. 

Last Lab 12/02/2010 Thyroid

Long Rt Thyroid with small nodule

In this lab we learned how to scan a thyroid.  Luckily it was somewhat easy.  It is not large, and not surrounded by any gas.  This definitely made it easier for me to see and image.  I am including 2 images on this weeks blog.  My patient had a small nodule on her right side.  The following pictures show the nodule measurements, as well as the blood flow. 








In this image you can see the nodule as well as the measurement showing the size of it.  It is a .26cm mass with bloodflow surrounding it, but not inside of it.  This is shown in the image below. 


Long Rt Thyroid with doppler



















Lastly, I will include a transverse image of the rt thryoid that demonstrates the nodule. 

Trans Rt Thyroid with Nodule

I had no trouble locating this nodule in transverse.  It was really hard to locate it and then turn on it to show it in the longitudinal.  I believe that I finally was able to do so.