From April 26th till May 6th the last X-ray course was conducted under the ORET project in Uganda. The training (theory and practical) of the 7 radiographers took place in the hospital of Mubende (JCRH). The radiographers came from the cities of Mubende (3), Kumi (2) and Mityana (2).
Mr. Age Froma was delivering this course on behalf of meduProf-S.
The MRS-machine worked properly. The Duo-Diagnost failed at the end of the course a few times (table- and bucky problems), but we could do our work with it: the wall Bucky worked fine and the subjects of tomography and fluoroscopy as well. We also paid attention to the Philips-Eleva digital development machine. There were copied WHO-books available for the participants.
The course
The students had already worked for about 1 month with the X-ray machine. In the beginning we took some time to look at the possibilities of the machine. The practical part of making pictures could be rather short, because the students were, generally, very familiar with positioning in radiography. Very nice was the fact we could do positioning and measurements on/with real patients!
The rest of the week and also four days in the next week next subjects were discussed in power point presentations (= theoretical part):
– ‘Units and quantities’
– ‘Automatic exposure’
– ‘X-ray tube (general principle)’
– ‘Basic physics of the electromagnetic-radiation’
– ‘Influence of the kV, the mAs and the filtration on the spectrum of photons’
– ‘Quality of the image, and how this quality could be influenced’
– ‘Principles of radiation protection (Photo-effect and Compton-effect)’
– ‘Radiobiology’ (Stochastic and determined effects)
– ‘Pattern recognition’ and ‘Pathology recognition’
– ‘Grids’
– ‘Digital Radiography’
– ‘Radiation with children’
In the second week we did the theoretical approach of the subject ‘Tomography’ en ‘Fluoroscopy’
– We discussed many assignments during the morning as well.
– Assignment concerning radiation protection: the students had to make a poster for their department. The poster had to be designed for the patients and their companions who come to the radiology department.
– Assignment in which the students had to calculate how much radiation the worker (= radiographer) got in that special case. The students had to deal with the scattered radiation, inverse square law and the measured transmission through the wall (the Pb-glass was not in the wall and the lead apron was used to cover the hole!)
In the afternoon during the practical training:
– how to use the equipment/ X-ray tube
– how to position the patient in the radiation beam
– with measurements proved the place of the cathode/ anode in the X-ray tube
– examinations concerning the primary beam
– scattered radiation (where does it come from)
– amount of front- and backscatter existing in the patient
– measured the absorbed dose with many investigations: wrist, elbow, knee, chest, lumbar spine, etc.
– some tests about the theoretical part (influence kV, mAs and filtration on the amount of X-rays in the primary beam)
– inverse square law: tests in the primary beam and scattered beam
– ‘heel effect’
– influence of the used beam size on the amount of the given radiation to the patient
– influence of the absorbed dose in the patient with different kV (concerning the radiation load for the patient)
– measured the transmission of the mobile absorber in the X-ray room
