The Wear is Beginning to Show

We're six weeks into our hospital rotations. The wear and tear is starting to show on some of my fellow students now. A couple of weeks ago, my classmate quit the program by walking out of the hospital and now others are starting to voice complaints about how difficult the RT work really is.

One gal, who weighs about 100 pounds is wondering if she has the ability to actually perform the job after she had to work with a 300 lb. patient. Of course she didn't have to work with the patient alone, but the assistance she got was from two other females of about the same stature, who kept yelling at her, asking her if she was even putting any muscle into getting the patient out of the gurney! She's already talking about a switch to mammography or ultrasound, once she completes the base rad license, but she doesn't realize that you have to work in the field for a year first, before you can switch to mammo! Another student is also complaining about how tough the work is and she's even a big strong female! She has concerns about how long she's going to last as a rad tech. My question is...umm...didn't you know what you were getting yourselves into? You did do the volunteer hours for the prerequisite requirements to get into the program, didn't you??

Others are coming unraveled in the classroom. We just got done with another round of midterms. Me? I fared pretty well. For not studying much (due to a crazy exam schedule, plus having to take care of my wife and having to take care of her mother, who's taking care of my wife after her abdominal surgery), I received an 80% on my positioning written exam (75% is passing for the class), a score of 93% for my positioning practical exam, and a 96% on my physics midterm. Now I can coast for a little while. Daryl, one of my closest classmates didn't do so hot with scores of 65%, 88% and a 65% for the same exams I mentioned above. Even JP, my super-student buddy, who we used to call Mr. 100% is letting his grades wane. Shit. This is just the first semester! We got miles to cover! No doubt that this is a tough program, but you had to be sure that you wanted it, when you accepted the invitation into the program.

For this weekend, I've finally got a little break. No real exams or image analyses to speak of, just one teeny-weany quiz for Monday. This Saturday is the big CSRT annual conference and it's coming to the Stanford Hospital campus. Most of the students in my class will be attending. It'll be a nice change of pace, not to be held responsible for what we're listening to, but rather to just get a real-life perspective on the industry, rubbing elbows with the big boys. I plan to thoroughly enjoy this weekend, doing the conference, catching up on TV and playing video games. Time to recharge my batteries!