Radiology: Dark Room - Perfect for Snoozing.

So I had my attachment in Radiology. I was a bit hesitant about it, as I'm not great at sitting still, though I was excited to actually be taught how to read X-rays, CT/MRI scans and maybe see a bit of intervention radiology done. As expected first day I was sat in a dark room in front of a computer screen with a radiologist. Had great teaching on how to read chest x-rays, but eventually it got a bit boring and repetitive. Eventually I found myself zoning out, but luckily the radiologist had to go to a meeting so allowed me to go home. Thought to myself: "Jeez how am I going to survive a full day tomorrow in a dark room?"

Next day, same thing in a dark room, but smaller room...which was fairly stuffy and warm. Perfect environment for a snooze. This time we were going through MRI scans of the head. Complicated, but interesting. Had a bit of a late night the day before trying to do job applications, so I found it hard to wake up. Eventually again, found myself drifting off. I was sat behind the radiologist and because he had quite a long list of things to do, he would go back into his own world and dictate a report. While he does that, I felt my eyes getting heavier...and let's say at one point I nearly fell off my chair. Then off to ultrasound in the afternoon. I followed the sonographer, and again they work in a dark room. It was fairly straight forward, except at least there's a little bit of patient contact. Despite this, found myself falling off the high chairs while trying to focus on the screen.  I think it didn't help that I didn't get any hands-on as this attachment was more just to get a feel for the specialty.

So this dark room saga and me dozing off continued for a few days. I guess I didn't learn as much as I had hoped. I think with radiology, it is one specialty where you just need to sit down with a book of examples and go through them at your own pace. It is nice to have someone there pointing stuff out, but I found that the radiologists does them really quickly as they're well-experienced, but for an untrained eye like mine...I really need to sit there and admire the abnormality and compare it with "normal".

Really not that exciting of a week. Starting another specialty next week...by the looks of it, it isn't that exciting. I do have Orthopaedics coming up in a few weeks so definitely looking forward to that. It's been awhile since I've been in theatres (since electives) and it'll be nice to be back in there!