  So, my work is fairly unique. It occurred to me to wonder today just how many animal-specific imaging techs there are in the country, and I'm guessing not many. I mean, there aren't that many places with imaging capabilities in the first place! So a typical day for me is something like this.... I get to work, clock in, and go to the ICU area. There is an ER doc 24/7, but the specialists work M-F.
The neurologist, whom I work with specifically, sees patients in the AM, and does procedures in the PM. Usually. So I go over to see what they've seen so far, and if anything needs a scan. We also take transfers from ER overnight, so they may need stuff too. Once I've looked there, I head back to surgery, to see if they have anything that may need scanned. The vast majority of our imaging is for neuro, but surgery does it's fair share. Then, if there are scans, I go set up.
In MRI, that involves making sure the anesthesia machine is set up and working, firing up the scanning software, warming up the monitoring equipment, and making sure we have enough O2. For CT, it's more warming up the machine and setting up the anesthesia. Once the animal's ready to go (pre-anesthetic bloodwork, xrays, catheter, all that good stuff) they come to the trailer (for MR, anyway). We give them some valium to make them happy and reduce seizures (why most of them are being scanned), and then use injectible anesthesia to "knock them down" (jargon, sorry!). Then we intubate them, start them on inhaled anesthesia, and hope they breathe. Ideally, they do. We have all sorts of nifty monitoring equipment, pulse ox and end-tidal CO2 and blood pressure. Then, the person doing anesthesia watches the dog's vitals while I set up the MR equipment.
Then I start the scan. Which mostly involves pushing certain buttons in the right order. As the images come up, I transfer them to a PC inside for my boss to interpret. That said, I've gotten to where I'm not bad at reading them myself.... I can spot most brain tumors, some spinal cord lesions, and a blown intervertebral disc. Not that it matters. I mention all this because I mostly feel like a trained monkey. None of my attempts to learn how to scan better, faster, whatever have been appreciated. My boss doesn't think I know anything, because I'm a girl and don't have any letters after my name. This is why I'm transferring departments. I'm tired of feeling like my skills are not only financially under-recognized, but also emotionally.
I'm tired of waking up knowing that nothing I do will gain me praise, because I'm invisible. It's like that being a tech sometimes. Oh, for pics of said workplace... urlLink Animal Emergency and Critical Care Center . Whee. 
