Spring Break! Everyone's on Vacation.

These past few weeks have been kind of crazy at our imaging center. We have been short staffed due to spring break vacations. It have given me more of an opportunity to step in and hold my own at the CT scanner.  We have been really busy with patients and remembering the new protocols that the doctors have decided to implement. We had an add-on patient this week who fell and hit her head in the parking lot at her doctor's office and then, was sent over to us for a head CT. When she arrived, she was a older lady in her seventies and sitting in a wheelchair. As our nurses spoke with her to get her initial information she became slightly confused. At this point , we began to bring her into the scanner room and she drifted off to sleep sitting up. We contacted one of our doctors immediately and he instructed us to get her scanned as quickly as possible.  As her images came up on the scanner, she had a large hematoma on the right side of her head. We immediately called 911 and had her transferred to the hospital where she underwent surgery that evening. 

I definately think I am becoming better at recognizing abnormalities on scans.  I know this comes with more experience. I like the fast pace of CT, but sometimes it makes it a hard learning environment. If we have patients scheduled every fifteen minutes, it doesn't leave much room for error!