So Many Positions......

Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
I can't reiterate that enought!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
Slower Traffic Keep Right!
It is one of the first things you learn in drivers education class and it is just common sense. I can't believe the number of people who don't know this rule or just choose to ignore it. You impede the flow of traffic and just generally enrage everyone else on the road. So please, as a gift to me, keep to the right if you are slower than the rest of the traffic. mmKay, folks? Thanks!

OK, I had to get that off my chest. On the drive back down to Phx from Flagstaff on Sunday, there were numerous times I saw people almost get into accidents just because they were going slow in the left lane. It drives me crazy.

So I had my first positioning class today. There was a lot of material to cover, so the instructor was blasting thru his lecture pretty fast. Luckily for us, he had produced a printout of his powerpoint lecture so we could follow along. Thank God, because there was no way I could have taken notes on all the stuff he was covering. It was like being at one of those cattle auctions, where the guy at the front is just rattling things off so fast you can't even understand him, even though you are reasonable sure he is speaking English. The material for the positioning class is actually pretty interesting. From the name you have probably surmised by now that we talk about how to position the patient for taking various types of projections (aka x-ray images), with a little anatomy thrown in for good measure.

You would not imagine the number of positions you can get the human body into....well, maybe some of you can, but lets leave that for the bedroom. ;-) Anyway, you have to learn a whole new kind of orientation because you talk about things in reference to how the patient is positioned in relation to the imagine receptor (IR) (aka the film that catches the x-rays). Almost always the patient's left is on your right, and their right is on your left. Sometimes, it helps to close your eyes and put yourself in the patients position, which, as good healthcare professionals, we should be doing periodically anyway, emotionally if not physically.

So the moral of the story is, there is a lot to cover for this class and it is only the second week of class. We already have a written test on it tomorrow as well as a lab competency exam, where you pair up with a partner and demostrate some of the more common positions for the instructors. It is all very interesting to me though, so that helps in my motivation to study and get this stuff straight. We will see how that "motivation" is in about 3 months, though.