MRI Safety

Join host Chaundria Singleton on this illuminating episode of "A Couple of Rad Techs Podcast," featuring MRI sage Kellye Mantooth. With 13 years of MRI experience under her belt and esteemed certifications in MR safety, Kellye shares invaluable insights into the world of radiology and the technological leaps it has made. From her personal journey through x-ray school to her specialization in MRI, Kellye articulates the transformative pathways and the enhanced job prospects within the field.
As MRI safety takes center stage, Kellye advocates for the preventability of mishaps and underscores the sharing of expertise for safeguarding patients. The duo delves into the intricate details that distinguish MRI from other imaging modalities, stressing the exigency of comprehensive training for those entering this specialty.
In a riveting exploration of the MRI's four zones and the meticulous safety protocols intrinsic to Level 1 trauma centers, they lay bare the life-saving significance of stringent access controls and emergency procedures. Badge security systems, ferromagnetic detection, and adherence to ACR's robust standards form the backbone of a safe MRI environment—vital knowledge for every radiology professional.
This episode doesn't shy away from tough topics, such as the risk of MRI burns, the hazards hidden in everyday clothing, and the need for rigorous safety systems. With discussions on cutting-edge technology like MRI projectile prevention systems, Chaundria and Kellye bring to light the importance of hands-on training.
Kellye champions the cause for formal certification and continuing education, painting a vivid picture of an MRI future shaped by innovations like remote scanning. Her dedication to MRI safety and education resounds throughout the conversation, making this episode a treasure trove for rad techs eager to advance their careers or anyone fascinated by the blend of healthcare and technology.
Don't miss out on a conversation that could reshape your understanding of radiology safety. Tune in, learn with us, and don't forget to leave a review for more insightful content in the coming episodes.
______________________
Follow Chaundria here
                           ⬆️⬆️⬆️
Scrubmates here

15% OFF Use Code: radtechs
______________________
radiology, MRI technologist, MRSO certification, MRSC certification, radiology field evolution, technology in radiology, x-ray to MRI transition, job opportunities in radiology, radiology salary advancement, MRI safety, MRI adverse events prevention, MRI versus CT imaging, MRI safety training, Level 1 trauma unit, MRI zones, MRI safety protocols, MRMD, MRI access control, ferromagnetic detection systems, ACR safety standards, MRI room safety, MRI burns, non-ferrous jewelry risks, MetraSense, MRI safety trainer, remote MRI scanning, American Board of MR Safety, MRSO, MRSE, MRMD certifications, MRI safety education, MRI safety challenges, level-one trauma center operations.
______________________

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to A Couple of Rad Techs Podcast, where we bring you an inside look at the world of radiology from the unique perspective of a married couple of radiologic technologists. Together, we have over 30 years of experience in the field and are here to demystify the science of medical imaging. Radiology is the unsung hero of the medical field, providing doctors with crucial images and information that help diagnose and treat illnesses. Join us as we explore the latest techniques, technologies, and innovations in radiology and discover the vital role we play in the healthcare industry. So come along for the ride as we share our passion for radiology as a married couple.

Chaundria: 0:38

Welcome everyone to A Couple of Rad Techs Podcast. I am your host, Chaundria Singleton, and you got all this stuff about me because you guys have been here on this podcast with me for the last few years, and I love having you and I brought another wonderful guest today. This is actually going to be an MRI topic today. So buckle up. Everybody wants to become an MRI technologist and we want you to become an MRI technologist. I am bringing more MRI topics. We're going to be talking about something that is a hot topic today. MRI safety. We see all the videos about wheelchairs and oxygen tanks flying into these MRI scanners. We have Kellye Mantooth. She is a Radiologic Technologist. She specializes in MRI. She has other specialties that really make her an expert when it comes to safety. Thank you, Kellye, for being on our podcast today.

Kellye: 1:28

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk about MR safety.

Chaundria: 1:31

Give us a brief little synopsis. I kind of delved in a little bit about who you are, but I want you to do it. You can do it better. Tell us who you are.

Kellye: 1:38

I have been an MR. Tech for almost 13 years now. Aside from being an MR. Tech, I have my certification as an MRSO and an MRSE. I serve on the board for the ISMRT MR Safety Committee, and I also serve on the board for the ABMRS.

Chaundria: 1:56

Nice. We're going to tell everybody what all of those acronyms stand for, because patients want to know, technologists I feel need to know. There are so many things. I had a technologist who's been doing radiology for like 45 years comment on one of my Facebook posts and I'm like, 45 years. Wow. They're like, I remember Ultrasound didn't exist. CT didn't exist. That is like the early stages. Now we're talking even more. We're looking at the field advance even more. You're hearing all these acronyms. If you're a technologist in radiology, if you're a student in high school and thinking about going into our amazing field, one of the close to the third largest medical professions. Our profession is always evolving and technology makes that happen. Don't be afraid of technology, stick with us. We're going to get right into it. You got into the radiology field. You said 13 years ago, when did you get into MRI?

Kellye: 2:47

I went through X ray school and when I was in X ray school, I had a rotation in MR and I knew immediately. Once I did my rotation in MR, I was like, this is it. This is where I'm going to be. I got all of my competencies done pretty early on and got to just go to MR and do like my, selections where you get to select your rotation. I did mine. I chose MR and just did all of mine there. They offered me a job when I was still a student. So I started working as a student tech while I was still in X ray school. When I got out, I got a job in MR. People think about this now, like, oh, there are so many job openings, but 13 years ago, the market looked very, very different. There weren't a lot of job openings back then.

Chaundria: 3:27

Yeah, I don't think people realize that. One thing I do notice about the field. It is ever changing when it comes to jobs. I look at the fact that I know X ray techs doing diagnostic radiology making 70 an hour.

Kellye: 3:39

Wow. Yeah, it wasn't like that 13 years ago.

Chaundria: 3:42

It's gonna change. I know people that went into other modalities and CT techs were making 90, and even right now. I remember radiation therapy, there were like zero jobs back 20 years ago. Everybody was coming back to diagnostic X ray because it was flooded in radiation therapy. I'm going to kind of talk about that because it goes back to my point. You started out in radiology technology school. That's your bread and butter. That gave you your foundation and now look where you've been able to go to. What's been the most fascinating thing that you've learned about MRI safety?

Kellye: 4:14

Oh, my goodness. So many things. I think probably the biggest thing that I can drive home for people is that all of these adverse events that we see on social media, any incidents that occur, they're all preventable. We just have to have the knowledge to be able to prevent them. And I think that's what keeps me going. That's what drives me every day is saying, how can we get this knowledge out there to people so that they can take better care of their patients?

Chaundria: 4:37

Yeah, that's really important. I love how you said, because this is something that I did when I went to radiology school. I knew I had two years of a program and I kind of looked at the curriculum. But I said, I know there's so many other things out there. MRI was there. CT was there. Ultrasound, radiation therapy, nuclear medicine. Didn't know a lot about either one of them. I got all my clinicals done the first year. They give you two years, but I knocked them all out in one year. I put my head down and I just went for it. Like you said, it allowed you your second year of the extra time that you had to really focus in on those modalities. And for me, CT was, they had a shortage all over and that and radiation therapy were my two things and later on I went into MRI but I just I just love the cross sectional part of it of MRI you get to see and CT as well but MRI there's a difference, is way more detailed you get to see things because the difference for me with CT is when someone has Abdominal pain. You usually go in for ultrasound or a CT. They don't really don't know what's going on. You just got abdominal pain. With MRI, and you could correct me. Maybe you've seen some other things, but with MRI you actually know what you're going for with MRI, it's not a guessing game. You already know there's something going on in the liver, so we're looking at the liver. We're just not shooting in the dark with MRI. What, what's your opinion on that?

Kellye: 5:52

I agree. I think partially because they take so long. Imagine how long it would take to scan. If we didn't know, and we were just fishing abdomen pelvis, for an MR exam, especially with contrast, that would just take so long. That would be miserable for the patient. We do kind of see when you get into MR, when you come to have an MRI, that it is typically a little more focused or honed in on what exactly we're looking for, looking at.

Chaundria: 6:16

Yeah, I agree. Back to the safety part, because that is what you do. I see you wearing your shirt for the company that you work for. We're going to talk about that too, because I find it interesting. Many companies that we don't think deal with MRI safety deal with MRI safety. But when it comes to MRI safety if people are in school, have you seen some really fascinating or helpful tips that ones can use as they're teaching students? Because as I told you, when I was teaching for seven years, students really wanted to kind of gloss over the safety part. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. If you can't be safe at MRI, you should not be working at MRI.

Kellye: 6:50

Yeah. I think when you're a student in MRI, there's so much to take in, learning MR in general, there's a lot to take in. And I feel like even now, even being a seasoned, I would consider myself a seasoned tech for 13 years. There wasn't a day when I was in clinic where I could go in and not learn something. There was always something to learn. I think the biggest piece of advice that I can give is don't gloss over that information. No. If you feel a little overwhelmed, that's okay. And that's totally normal, but don't just skip it because it feels overwhelming because it is really important, not just to get good images for the physicians, but also to make sure that your patients are safe and they're not injured while they have this exam, do no harm. That means don't make things any worse than they already showed up as.

Chaundria: 7:33

Yeah. The fascinating thing for me with safety is sometimes even patients, only think that it's projectile. They don't talk about or really focus on the burning, the burns that people can sustain and do sustain in MRI. We'll talk a bit about that as well, because that's part of what you do. You're just not an MRI safety officer to stop people from coming in with projectiles and, guns and bobby pins flying. I saw this one on Chicago, MED. It's like my TV show. I don't know. I've done some little things about the funny parts of medical imaging they show on TV, but there's one with this MRI scanner and a guy comes in. He's having a mental episode and It was so wrong. They pressed the button to turn the MRI scanner off. And I just was like, oh my goodness, this is bad. This is really bad. But what they were really focusing on was the projectile. And like you say, the things that people see, technologists and patients is important. We're going to talk to you about the burns, the, the burns that patients can sustain as well as projectiles. When it comes to your expertise, you had a bunch of acronyms. What does MRSO, MRSE, and all the boards that you're on, what do those stand for and why should we know?

Kellye: 8:47

The American Board of MR Safety. Would tell you who founded it. I think it was Manny Kanal I could be wrong on that. But where I think we're all familiar with Dr Kanal if we work in the MR space. And the goal was to provide some sort of formal training to people regarding MR safety. And so there were 3 certifications that you could get in safety. And those 3 are MRSO, MRSE and MRMD. Now, MRMD is gonna be reserved for a physician. It can be any physician. It is typically a radiologist. MRSO is an MR. Safety officer, and that's typically for a technologist, but there's nothing that precludes anybody. You can walk in from the street and go sit down for that board if you want. And then MRSE is an MR safety expert, and that's typically reserved for physicists. Again, there are no restrictions. Like anybody can study for those boards and go sit and take that test.

Chaundria: 9:40

But let me tell you, those tests are not just walk off the street and sit down take them. She's making it sound like they're super easy. There are education courses for it. Am I not correct?

Kellye: 9:49

There are. I don't know that they're necessarily guided for"passing the test", but Manny Kanal has a conference that he does on MR. Safety. Toby Gilk does some conferences for MR. Safety as well. Just things to improve your knowledge for MR safety.

Chaundria: 10:05

Even if you're not maybe taking the exam as technologist working in MRI, I just find Dr. Kanal's information so helpful throughout my journey at MRI, really understanding the safety part of it. I mean, it's super helpful even for a technologist, but these roles. And I think I worked at a children's hospital and they were just starting to bring in the MRSO and the MRSE. And I was so fascinated by it because the physicist is the one at the children's hospital who was the first to get this certification. And when he came back and he created a course for all of us to take, my mind was blown. This guy's like super smart, super smart. And very humble as well, but he created this course and the way he taught that course I felt like I really understood safety to a new level, and I find working with newer people in MRI I just think this would be something really good, even if you're not looking at a role in the MRI department of being a safety officer, or having responsibilities, is something that I think everybody could benefit from. Do you agree?

Kellye: 11:09

I mean at least having a basic understanding. I'm not expecting you to be able to say, oh, this is how the magnet works. And this is what causes this, or this is what causes that. But at least to say, how can I protect my patient while they're in the exam? You know, how do I protect myself and my team members while we're in the MR environment? It's crucial that you know that if you're going to be an MR tech, and maybe that's not something that you get right off the bat, but that's something that you should strive to attain, right? You should strive to know this is how I can protect myself, my patient, and my team members while we're in the MR environment.

Chaundria: 11:43

You speak about a good point, protecting your team members, because sometimes we think just protecting patients, but sometimes, especially in larger hospitals, you're working with another technologist. I remember we worked at a hospital where we trained students and there was a new technologist and they didn't have the safety thing set up like they do now where certain wheelchairs just did not make it even down to MRI. And some of those wheelchairs look identical. I mean, they look totally identical safe ones and unsafe ones. You do not know if, if one is safe just by looking at it. And that's what happened. And people get to moving really, really fast. And I just happened to turn around, you know how you feel somebody behind you. And I turned around and she was coming in with this chair from the waiting room. I don't remember even walking. I think I floated across the air. I was in a path of where that wheelchair would have gotten sucked to. And that for me would have been terrible. And she felt so bad, but I was like, this is a learning experience. This is what we're going to take this as, but it never made it into the room, but I was aware enough of who I was working with that she was new. I was still trying to train her, but you also have to be aware. You've worked in a level one trauma unit before. What were your biggest challenges that you faced ensuring MRI safety?

Kellye: 13:00

I think probably some of the biggest things that we dealt with were people wanting just to come into zone 3 without being screened. We followed, if not all of them, the majority of ACR best practices, the ACR manual and MR safety we followed, if not all of them, a very large percentage of them. And one of our prerequisites to coming into zone 3 was that you had to be screened. And we did a lot of complex exams, Anastasia, Nicu. If you could do it, we did it essentially. And we had a lot of people that wanted to bypass that system or maybe I don't want to say offended, but just couldn't understand why they needed to do that. That was one of the biggest challenges that we faced. I think another big challenge that we faced were seeing a lot of complex patients, meaning they would have one implant or multiple implants that would need reviewed prior to their exam. And then we'd have to make sure we accommodate all of the conditions of all of these implants and make sure that they get a safe exam. That was another challenge is where do we get the resources to do this stuff to make sure that our scanner utilization stays high and that our patient satisfaction stays high and that we don't compromise their care in the process.

Chaundria: 14:12

Yeah, that's really important. Can you explain to everyone what a level trauma one center is? Like what makes it different? What kind of patients do you see? Because that's not just your regular hospital.

Kellye: 14:21

Where the worst of the worst go. I mean, we had helicopters, lifestar. They fly people in who are in very critical condition to level one trauma unit. If there's a complex exam that needs to be done, it's probably coming to you if you're at a level one trauma unit.

Chaundria: 14:36

Practicality comes in for me here. When you talk about zone three, maybe our listeners, they don't know that we have different zones in MRI. Can you break those zones briefly down for us?

Kellye: 14:45

There are four. Conceptually, MR should be divided into four zones. Zone 1 is going to be freely accessible to the entire public. Think about something like a waiting area. Zone 2 is usually that interface between 1 and 3. That's typically where your patients are going to get changed. They're going to lock up their clothes, any belongings that they have with them. And then zone three is your control panel where your technologists are going to sit. It's right outside of zone four, which is where the magnet is going to be. Zone three and zone four can be called the MR environment.

Chaundria: 15:16

When she talks about that zone three the challenges of keeping things safe in zone three, sometimes you work in facilities at your level one trauma center where you by yourself at a scan or did you usually have someone to help you?

Kellye: 15:30

We had, we had five scanners. And on any given day, we would have six, seven, eight, technologists there. It wasn't like there were 2 assigned to 1 scanner, but we had additional people. We had an additional half person or 1 person per scanner.

Chaundria: 15:46

I was thinking how would someone, who maybe doesn't work at a level one, but there are level one trauma centers and they operate just like this five and seven scanners. I worked there when they had seven scanners and they were always busy. I'll talk about what we did, but this was years ago and now things are even more focused when it comes to the MRI safety at places like this. What practical tips can someone maybe working in the outpatient center at a mid level hospital or a level one start to have as part of their resources, because as we know we don't always have that many techs available. Sometimes we're alone. Someone comes in with an emergency. They're not always able to tell us clearly what they have or show a card. What are some practical things that someone with maybe two techs in an environment like that can do to make sure they are following MR safety protocols?

Kellye: 16:37

I think the very first thing would be for the facility to designate an MRMD and MRMD is going to be ultimately responsible for all MR safety, right? They're going to be responsible for the patients while they're having the exam then after that you can appoint someone to be an MRSO and an MRSE I mean, I think having a formal training and having a certification is great. I don't think it's required to do that. I think you should strive for that if you are going to say that you're an MRSO or an MRMD. After appointing an MRMD, MRSO, MRSE, I would have policies and procedures have well defined practices that you believe are best for the patient. That helps protect your technologist too, because they were acting in the interest of the MRMD. Secondary to those things, I think having badge access control to zone 3 or key code access. I don't personally love a key code access because we know that gets shared. If that's your only option, do that. And then outside of that, make sure if you're not using zone 4, that the door to zone 4 is closed. If you're going to step away for any prolonged amount of time, lock the door have policies in place that help protect you if there is an emergency, meaning if you have a code, you know how to respond to that code, you know who does what, who can get into zone 3. Policies and procedures they should never be overlooked because those kind of define how we're going to practice normally, but then also how are we going to practice if there is an emergency? What are we going to do if there's a code? Where are we taking the patient to? Who's showing up for that? What physicians come in or what physician do I need to call?

Chaundria: 18:05

Those all important because I love how you are showing us strong MR safety protocols. You can have protocols, but these are well defined, strong MRI protocols for safety of everyone, not just the patient. Now let's kind of move over to the MR safety and technology. When you talk about ferromagnetic detection systems, that seems crucial. Can you explain how they work and the importance of MRI safety? Because people think all metal's bad.

Kellye: 18:32

Ferromagnetic detection, there are, at least with my company, we have two different kinds. We have something that we call a patient screener, and then we have a system that we call an entry control system. The patient screener is going to be the most sensitive detector that we have, and that is going to be to try to find anything that's on or in your patient's body prior to entering zone 3. The importances of that would be one, if it is ferrous or if they do have a ferrous implant or something ferrous on them. That can become a projectile, or if it's implanted in their body, it could, it could migrate being exposed to the magnetic field, the entry control system. The purpose of that is to prevent medium to large size items from becoming projectile in the MR environment. That is going to be a little less sensitive than the screener. Won't pick up small things like bobby pins, probably won't detect things that are implanted in your body, but the purpose of that is if somebody is walking toward the system with a ferrous oxygen cylinder, it will notify them before they get into zone 4 and we have an adverse event.

Chaundria: 19:32

You have different types of ways to detect it. I love that your company is really setting the standards on that. Now, you spoke about ACR, setting the best practice standards for MR safety. We've all been to places. They're like, yeah, we have our ACR sticker. I think Tobias Gilk just had a video or something where they had the sticker on it and the wheelchair was inside the scanner. Can you elaborate on how your training aligns with those recommendations? Because we go to some places, I know me as a consultant, going to some places, helping them try to get things together. They have no clue. Like nobody knows what ACR is, but they have the sticker right there. And it's kind of lax, especially when it's not larger places.

Kellye: 20:09

Anything that I recommend in regards to ferromagnetic detection is going to align with ACR, the manual on MR safety best practice recommendations, meaning when we talk about walking patients into the room, if the door is open, remember, the entry control system is not for screening patients. That system is going to be to prevent medium to large size hazardous items from coming in the room. But say I open the door and I'm about to walk a patient into zone four. Because there's no barrier now between the patient and the magnet, right? We've opened the door. The door was the barrier. I'm going to make myself the barrier. Have the patient wait, and then I'm going to go through first and then I'm going to say, okay, now you can come in. The great thing about the entry control system is that if the patient picks something up. We changed everyone down to skin, but we did have paper pants that had pockets in the back. Let's say they left their cell phone or a key or something in the pocket, the entry control system will detect that and it can also detect things like an insulin pump. Insulin pumps have various signatures that are large enough that it can be detected by that. Two reasons I'll go in first and now I'm the barrier, right? We're in alignment with ACR recommendations. But additionally, I won't ever go through simultaneously with the patient because if I'm not ferrous free at my job, which could be a watch or Dansko shoes or an underwire bra, if I walk through at the same time that the patient does, well, now we have no way of knowing who set it off. Is it me? Or is it the patient?

Chaundria: 21:29

Yeah, you spoke about some shoes. I've got a story about that too, but I'll save that for another time. People don't think shoes. It's a lot of little things that we just do not think. Now, athletic wear, and I hear some underwear.

Kellye: 21:42

I think dressing your patients down to skin. I think that's probably the best practice that I can recommend. I have no idea what your clothes are made out of and a lot of people will say, oh, I looked at the tag and the tag said 100 percent cotton, but clothing companies, there can be like a 5 percent impurity and the tag doesn't have to disclose that. There could be microfiber or the metallic fibers woven into there, and if it's only 5%, that still puts your patient at risk.

Chaundria: 22:11

Yeah, I was going to talk about that as my other question. This leads right up to it. We're talking about changing people down. I have a YouTube page and people are on there saying, there's no kind of system to this. Because when I went to one place for an MRI, they let me just take my belt off and told me to check my pockets. And then another place made me take off everything. We've got to really get into like, like you said, strong MR safety systems and protocols following ACR guidelines and even changing down to the skin. I love that term.

Kellye: 22:40

Yeah, maybe there's been an evolution of this, there was a point in time where we didn't change people for an MR exam. And then it was like, okay, well if it's gonna be exposed to the transmit field, let's change them. But one of the things that I advocate for is it's just to have that kind of as a blanket policy that we're going to change everybody down to skin. Especially if you've got patients that share a dressing room waiting for their exam. They're all going to be talking about why did you get to keep this on and I had to take everything off? And they don't understand or just like you said hey I went to this other facility and they didn't make me change anything or the last time I had an MRI I got to wear this and this so just for consistency sake because our patients don't know it's probably best to change everyone down to skin

Chaundria: 23:19

And when you say that, talk about microfibers and clothing, what we don't talk a lot about or see on these TV shows is burns, MRI burns. How common are MRI burns?

Kellye: 23:29

They're the number one reported adverse event. I think we see a lot of these photos of projectiles and things stuck to the magnet. They photograph well. They get a knee jerk reaction, but it's not fortunately, not as common as burns. Not that it's fortunate that there's any sort of adverse event, but those are typically or can be more detrimental than a patient receiving a burn.

Chaundria: 23:48

What are some of the top three reasons that burns happen?

Kellye: 23:51

Proximity burns, I think, is number one. Proximity burn is going to be when the patient touches the bore of the magnet, the transmit field. The 2nd one probably that we're looking at would be a reflective burn. That's going to be people wearing like their Lululemon clothes in there, or their spandex or sweat wicking, those things can also burn. And then the other two burns are like looping burns or resonant burns. A looping burn could be, maybe you're laying in the scanner and you're laying with your arm over your head and your thumbs touching your ear. Any small amount of skin to skin contact can cause that looping burn.

Chaundria: 24:26

Yeah, EKG leads. I know when I used to work in inpatient, I would always just check the snap, make sure this gown was not a snapping gown. A lot of times on the floor, those are easier to get to with the patient. I understand, but in MRI, they are not safe. I would have to roll patients over to make sure. Because if they're in the hospital any period of time, those EKG leads get detached and it will wind up in the back. They wind up all down on the leg. They just migrate everywhere. But it's my job to make sure the patient is safe. I even had a patient recently, wasn't my patient. And state that they had an MRI before at a facility and they didn't have to take out their nipple rings. Some places get more jewelry than others. That's one thing that I find technologists are telling me they're running into and patients say, well, they just told me to put a piece of tape over it. And again, it goes back to not having a knowledge. We're not talking about projectiles here. We're talking about burns.

Kellye: 25:19

Yeah, I think some jewelry can become a projectile. I mean, if it's ferrous, some of the costume jewelry is made out of ferrous components and that stuff can become a projectile, but you're also potentially exposing your patient to an RF burn when you let them wear their jewelry in there.

Chaundria: 25:35

Yeah. I'm like you, I just rather be overly cautious, even if it doesn't go off and it's gold. I just need you to take it off anyway. Going 20 plus years without hurting anybody. I need another 20. And when I do that, most of my patients go, Oh, you're so right. I don't want to be your first. Let me take it off. You got to make a joke out of things sometimes and make people laugh to get beyond that awkwardness or them already coming in claustrophobic, mad that you're making them take everything off. Make a joke out of it. Say, look, I hadn't hurt anybody in X, Y, Z years. That's all part of our training. We want to keep everybody safe, but your role at Metricens, please tell us about it. Techs sometimes feel like their role is only patient care in radiology, I just was so drawn to your profile on LinkedIn because to me, you are like a poster child that shows we have so many options in radiology and medical imaging that it's not all patient care. Only thing we think about is sometimes sales, clinical applications, but what you're doing, Kellye, is for me, really good to see. Tell us what it is you do, what your company is about and help technologists to see what amazing things radiologic technologists can do.

Kellye: 26:45

Work for Metricens and what we do is we create a ferromagnetic detection systems to integrate into zone 2 and 3. Like I said earlier, the patient screener that goes in zone 2, and that's to help identify any small ferrous objects that are on or in your patient. And then the inter control system that is in zone 3, just before you enter zone 4. My role at Metricens is the MR safety trainer. And so part of my job is to be the subject matter expert, and then I get to go in online or in person and train technologists how to integrate ferromagnetic detection into their workflow. And not just to integrate it, but to integrate it effectively. We know that you've probably seen online, some people say, Oh, these things go off all the time. And so part of what I'm trying to tackle is to teach people what will produce an alarm? And how do we make sure that these alarms are significant when we do get an alarm?

Chaundria: 27:38

I want to tell you a quick story. I worked at a hospital and they installed them. Nobody gave us training. We kind of walk through it. It would just go off all the time. We eventually people started ignoring it and going back to the hand wander, because we literally just got an install showed up one day. I thought it was great. Once I figured out how to use it, but I never got training. Even if I was using another scanner, I would take my patients through that particular one. It was so good. Once I understood how it worked, and it was the only hospital I've ever worked at, but it was a very large hospital with seven busy scanners, and they invested in it. They invested in a lot of good things, that hospital did, which saved, a lot of patients and technologists. Kudos to them. But that was my first time seeing it. I don't know what company it was, but I was so impressed by it. And to now have you on our podcast, educating us about why facilities should use it. They even had one on the wall. Now that we know what your company does, how would you, encourage maybe someone in our field or give them advice in their career for MRI technology and especially MRI safety. What encouragement would you give them?

Kellye: 28:44

I think the first bit of encouragement that I would recommend would be to get some formal training. Study for an MRSO certification, sit for a board, pass it. I don't know that I'm going to recommend that everyone take the MRSE. It's more driven for physicists, but I will say that it never hurts to take it. It never hurts to have more knowledge. Put yourself in an environment where you can apply that knowledge. If you're working in an outpatient facility that doesn't scan any active implanted medical devices, try to get on at the level one trauma unit. Try to get on in a facility where you're going to be more exposed and you're going to be able to test that knowledge and apply it every day because the saying is true. If you don't use it, you will lose it. For me, at least don't just go sit for a board and sit and say, okay, now I have these extra initials after my name, actually do something to apply that knowledge and make sure that you're staying up to date on that knowledge. And that can also look like every year. I mean, we, as a radiological technologist, we have to get continuing education, so maintain those, make sure that you're attending conferences related to MR safety, that you're taking online courses related to MR safety, that you're focusing in your CEUs even on MR safety, just make sure that you're continually digesting stuff and learning, because I don't think there's a lack of things that you can learn, especially when it comes to MR and MR safety.

Chaundria: 30:01

I totally agree. Looking ahead, what exciting advancements or changes do you see in the horizon for MRI technology and safety protocols?

Kellye: 30:09

I think probably the biggest one right now that everyone's talking about is remote scanning. I think there are a few different methods for remote scanning, but I'm excited to see what comes out of this. And I'm excited to see the MR safety recommendations and best practices that are developed as a result of this, because I think this could be really advantageous to a lot of facilities and to a lot of patients ultimately.

Chaundria: 30:30

Thank you so much. And Kellye, it has been great having you on as a guest on A Couple of Rad Tech's Podcasts. We appreciate all of Your expertise when it comes to MRI safety. You're always welcome back.

Kellye: 30:42

Oh, thank you for having me. It was so fun to get to talk about MR safety.

Chaundria: 30:46

If you want to check more out about Kellye and learn more about MRI safety. Kellye Mantooth. You can find her on LinkedIn and I will put all of her links right there in the description. And thank you for listening to A Couple of Rad Techs Podcast.

30:59

And that's a wrap for this episode of a couple of rad techs podcast. We hope you enjoyed our discussion of the fascinating world of radiology and learn something new about the role we play in the healthcare industry. If you have any questions or topics that you love for us to cover, feel free to reach out and let us know what they are. And you guys, please, if you enjoyed this podcast or any of the other episodes, we want to hear what you think. Thought leave us a review. Mama's got to pay our bills. It helps. And until next time, stay tuned for more insightful and informative episodes of a couple of rad techs podcast.