Hospital & Clinics Observation

Number 2 is very important. At each of the clinical sites that you go to do your observation hours at, you will need to sign off on a confidentiality waiver, which means that what happens at the observation hours, stays at the hospital. You don't go - maybe you saw your sister's neighbour - and you can't go home that day and say, "Mr Smith was in the hospital, he's getting a chest x-ray taken, and he sounded kind of under the weather, so you might just want to check up on him." Even though that's well-intended, that's very very very against privacy laws. If there's a breach of confidentiality, you will not be permitted to apply to the radiology program. That is something that the program, and also our clinical affiliates, take very seriously.

Since these are observation hours, that is exactly what you will be doing. You're just observing and watching. You will not participate or assist in any way in any of the procedures. You will also be going into other work areas as well, so you might go for a few minutes into a CAT-scan, or maybe ultrasound, or nuclear medicine. Those are areas that are advanced modalities, so that means that, once you get your first 2 years - your Associate of Applied Science - then you can go on with additional education, and go into those different modalities. So when you graduate, you're not going to be doing CTs or MRIs, or any of that, you're just going to be doing diagnostic imaging.

It is important as well that wherever the clinical instructor - or if there's an assigned tech that's showing you around - and they take you to an area that you please stay in that area. Please do not wander off.

Again, feel free to ask questions. This is your time to find out what we do and to get as much information as possible, for you to make an informed decision about whether medical imaging is the profession for you. However, we do want to make sure that you're asking questions when it's appropriate, so please do not ask questions in front of the patient. Maybe you saw an image and you went back out with the technologist, and they're doing the next image, and you ask the technologist, "What was that big white thing that we saw?" Well, it very well might have been just the heart shadow, completely normal. However, the patient's going to interpret, "Oh my goodness, something is wrong with me." So make sure that when you do ask questions, it is not in front of a patient, or not when an exam is going on. Wait till the exam is over and then ask questions.

Once you complete all of your observation time, there are some questions on your observation document, which I will show you in a minute. That's the document that you will have to get signatures on.