patient support skills for hybrid imaging practitioners

During a weeks clinical attachment at a regional PET/CT centre in England, I began to realise the patient support skills that are required by nuclear medicine practitioners who work in PET/CT and SPECT/CT. Being able to identify the emotional levels within a patient during the first few moments of contact is crucial.

All practitioners working within an oncology environment learn to adjust their working parameters with each individual patient who requires care and treatment. Equipping nuclear medicine practitioners with patient support skills will ensure they fully appreciate and understand the patient's perspective / current state of mind and hopefully obtain optimal images. I have begun to explore the value of patient support training sessions for hybrid imaging practitioners and basic strategies that could be adopted.

We already use the Health Talk Online website within the programme of nuclear medicine education at the University of the West of England, Bristol and have begun including service users within certain modules. However, the inclusion of specific patient support sessions should further help nuclear medicine practitioners communicate with patients and provide a holistic clinical service.

Blending in Hybrid Imaging

Following some time at a clinical site recently, I noticed the knowledge and understanding required by practitioners in order to create fused image data sets in SPECT/CT and PET/CT. Having the correct amount of CT and PET or SPECT data can really highlight the presence of disease.

Image reviewing can be a subjective aspect of nuclear medicine and knowing how much "blending" is required comes from experience and an understanding of the modalities. This is particularly an issue when selective data sets are sent to PACS for reviewing by consultants.

The advent of "floating" licences has made it slightly easier to view fused hybrid data sets on remote systems, where the user has full access to imaging blending tools.