Scanning

I have so much trouble remembering to do this blog.  I am not sure why. 

I am still working on the carotids, and have become much better.  For the most part I am able to finish one whole side on my own.  I still need to become a bit quicker, which is why I dont' really move onto the other side too often.  Normally the tech I am working with does not need to redo many of my images. 

I was also pretty glad this week, I was able to scan almost a whole venous leg on the patient.  I just didn't get to the posterior tibs.  I also had a bit of trouble with the long pictures of the profunda and the prox femoral vein.  It did make me feel a bit better because the tech that took over also had some trouble with those pictures.  Obviously they were able to get them, but it did take a bit more work and they explained to me that it was just because they were pretty small vessels and very close to arteries. 

I feel that I have also made a lot of improvement with the scanning of kidneys.  I still have some trouble picking out the pathology, or making pathology when there isn't any, but overall my pictures are looking much better.  I recently worked with a tech who had been on maternity leave for awhile and just came back and said she had noticed an improvement in my scanning.  That made me feel very good, because sometimes I feel like I am stuck and not making any headway. 

I will include a few more pictures of some carotids.  I need to save some more images to my drive so I can definitely add images of something other than a carotid next week.

Distal CCA

Left ECA

CCA mid

Carotid Scan

I am going to finally attach some images that I have scanned.  I did this exam a few weeks ago on a patient with a history of carotid stenosis.  At my location a normal carotid exam starts with the transverse images of black and white images of the proximal, mid, distal, bulb and bifurcation(b/w and color) of the CCA.  Next we move on the sagital images.  These consit of proximal, mid, distal CCA in black and white, color and with doppler.  Then the bulb in b/w and color, followed by the ECA in black and white, color and doppler.  Then the ICA prox, mid and distal in b/w, color and doppler.  Finally followed up with the vertebral and subclavian in b/w, color and doppler.  In our system there is a vascular calculation, where you input the different velocities and print the report to provide the doc with that information.  Overall, I do like doing this exam.  They can be a bit challenging still for me, but I am getting better with each one. 

This is an image of the proximal CCA.

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