Jan 3-7th.

Well, I am not a hundred percent sure what I should write about.  This was the last week of full time clinicals.  We have to go back to school next week.  I am a bit scared about that. 

Let's see what did I see that was interesting this week at the hospital.  I got to see a scan of a man's scrotum that made for some neat images.  He had had surgery on the right and then more recently a lot of pain and swelling.  The scan showed a decent amount of fluid on the right.  The fluid was constantly moving around, which made the pictures look kind of neat. 

I have been able to scan a bit more mainly the carotids and kidneys.  I like how the carotid images turn out.  I have a lot of trouble getting the long images.  It is a bit rough to completely clear out the vessel to get the best b/w image you can.  I was working with a tech this week that let me start an exam while he finished up some stuff.  I finished pretty much all the images of the right kidney.  I was worried that they may not have been the best, but he kept all of them.  I was pretty happy about that.  The only thing he went back and did was take a better look at the pathology that I thought I had seen. 

I have learned that I do not push hard enough with the transducer.  Whenever someone is helping me scan they immediately stick the transducer down and get a much clearer image, and realize that I was not pushing that hard.  The only time I have discovered that I am pushing too hard is on the lower extremity venous studies.  Of course this is when you do not want to push too hard so that you are not pushing the vein too hard. 

I got to see my first pelvic exam of an actual pregnancy.  The only 2 before this week were most likely ectopic pregnancies.  This one was there was an actual fetus that could be visualized.  It was interesting and neat to see the measurements and what they mean as far as the pregnancy.

Well, that about sums up this week.  I need to start becoming more confident and faster at the exams that I am helping with.  I am starting to get pretty comfortable with the paras and thoras.  At least setting everything up.