Let me tell you about something that I just recently realized...
I work with people!
People, everywhere I look, more people! Patients and co-workers and radiologists and x-ray techs and clerical staff, oh my!
How easily I forget that. And do you know how I realize that I sometimes forget this?
I stop making eye contact.
I work with people!
People, everywhere I look, more people! Patients and co-workers and radiologists and x-ray techs and clerical staff, oh my!
How easily I forget that. And do you know how I realize that I sometimes forget this?
I stop making eye contact.
It’s such a little thing, and it can be forgiven, can’t it? After all, I work in a very busy hospital and an even busier clinic.
I am often rushing from one case to the next, checking previous reports and verifying names and birth dates, ensuring that I am making all the proper assessments and reviewing my images with the radiologist.
It’s no wonder that I spend so much time looking from paperwork to screens and back again. It’s really important that I keep histories and pathologies organized as I move from patient to patient.
I am often rushing from one case to the next, checking previous reports and verifying names and birth dates, ensuring that I am making all the proper assessments and reviewing my images with the radiologist.
It’s no wonder that I spend so much time looking from paperwork to screens and back again. It’s really important that I keep histories and pathologies organized as I move from patient to patient.
But what about the people that I am doing all this rushing around for?
In trying to help them and their doctors I forget that I am actually speaking with them, interacting with them and representing an important part of their healthcare team to them.
And when I get caught up in the minutia of the day I stop taking the time to look people in the eye. And then I stop asking them how they’re doing, and if they’re comfortable, if they have any other areas of pain that I need to look at before the appointment ends.
I forget that there is someone in front of me deserving of my kindness and acknowledgment. Someone who may be anxious or fearful or uncertain. Someone who may be curious or funny or interesting. Someone who may have a question that they have been trying to ask. Someone who just wants to be heard or seen.
And when I get caught up in the minutia of the day I stop taking the time to look people in the eye. And then I stop asking them how they’re doing, and if they’re comfortable, if they have any other areas of pain that I need to look at before the appointment ends.
I forget that there is someone in front of me deserving of my kindness and acknowledgment. Someone who may be anxious or fearful or uncertain. Someone who may be curious or funny or interesting. Someone who may have a question that they have been trying to ask. Someone who just wants to be heard or seen.
When you stop looking people in the eye, you forget that they are people.
You just see them as another appointment to get through, another report to fill out, another demand on your time.
And when we don’t look people in the eye, we can lose the sense of meaning in our work, and forget why we are doing what we do. And while we might get through our a day a minute or two faster, we never give ourselves the chance to connect with the person in front of us, acknowledge their presence, their concerns, and their importance to us.
And when we don’t look people in the eye, we can lose the sense of meaning in our work, and forget why we are doing what we do. And while we might get through our a day a minute or two faster, we never give ourselves the chance to connect with the person in front of us, acknowledge their presence, their concerns, and their importance to us.
In doing so we lose touch with the purpose of our work and the meaning and satisfaction it can give to our lives.
When we don’t connect with the people that we are helping, we forget that what we do matters.
Because ultrasound matters, people matter, and YOU matter.
So lets go out there tomorrow and look our co-workers and fellow techs and patients in the eye and show them that we know this!
And as always, Happy Scanning to you all.
Because ultrasound matters, people matter, and YOU matter.
So lets go out there tomorrow and look our co-workers and fellow techs and patients in the eye and show them that we know this!
And as always, Happy Scanning to you all.