submitted by Amy Molle, student in the CT/MRI program at UNMC, class of 2009
A day in the life of a CT/MRI student is spent splitting your time between classroom/online classes and putting in clinical hours at the hospital. Your schedule from Fall to Spring semester does not change except for the classes you are taking each semester. You can expect to start your day at 8 am every day of the week. On Mondays you are at the hospital from 8 am to noon then you are done for the day. This time is given to you to work on your online classes which, depending on the semester, is either 2 or 3 classes. Tuesday-Thursday you are at the hospital working from 8 am to 4 pm logging clinical hours at the hospital. Friday you will split your day between hospital and class time, you leave the hospital at noon and return to campus at 1 pm for classes until 4 pm.
Working at the hospital logging clinical hours means working hand in hand with the technologists. CT/MRI students are on two-week rotations splitting their time between the two modalities. During those hours they are screening patients to make sure it’s safe to enter the scanning room and proceed with the scheduled procedure; also making sure that the patient’s questions are answered and they feel comfortable with the procedure ahead of them. The student preps patients and performs scans from day one with the technologists right by their side. It’s a very hands-on learning environment. Most of these hours are logged at the Nebraska Medical Center, but you also visit Nebraska Health Imaging and Midwest Neuro Surgical Center.
Technologists view