Wake Med

Yesterday I went over to Wake Med, one of the local hospitals, to observe their nuclear medicine department. I went over a little after 6am when we delivered their morning doses and stayed until about noon.

I saw one patient get a series of scans of her GI tract. The doctor suspected a blockage in her gall bladder so after her injection she had to be scanned at several different points over a couple hours. It was neat to see the progression and her organs to "light up" at different points in time.

I also watched some patients get stress heart scans. Patients that have been experiencing chest pain and are suspected to have ischemia or dead heart tissue are given two scans: resting and stress. The patient is given a small dose and scanned at rest then the patient walks on the treadmill or is given a drug to induce stress on the heart, given a larger radionuclide dose, and imaged again to see the difference. The goal is to see if tissue that appeared dead during the resting test receives blood flow during the stress portion. If so, the tissue is damaged, but not dead, so with lifestyle modifications and drug therapy, hopefully the patient's heart function will improve.

I also got a chance to look through their files at all the kinds of scans they do and see the difference between normal scans and scans with defects. It was really helpful for me to see what the nuclear medicine technologists do and to know what happens to the doses I prepare once they leave the pharmacy.