THE SEVENTH
+EIGHT DAY
HOSPITAL ADVENTURES:
DAYS SEVEN & EIGHT ★
What does the Lab do? What are some medical machines?
Aishwarya Babu’s Medical Log: Day 7 - The Lab
Today is Monday, July 1, 2024. It is my seventh day at Revathi Medical Center in Tamilnadu, India.
Today I will be in the lab for the whole day. In the lab, they get sent patient samples (blood, saliva, etc.) and run tests on them to discover if a patient has a disease, and if so, what disease.
The fridge in the lab has a substance that is used to start tests. They use a checklist to make sure that the temperature of the fridge is maintained for the substance to be usable.
The lab is also known as the biochemistry department. There is a department within the lab that is called the hematology department. In that department, they study blood and its treatment.
In school, we learned about the micropipette, which I noticed they used in the lab as well. I was able to do some piping alongside the people in the lab for some time. It was exciting to use knowledge learned in class in an actual hospital environment.
Aishwarya Babu’s Medical Log: Day 8 - MRIs
Today is Tuesday, July 2, 2024. It is my eighth day at Revathi Medical Center in Tamilnadu, India.
Today I will be understanding the operations of the MRI, CT scan, and the ultrasound. At Revathi, the MRI is done in a separate building from the rest of the hospital.
Revathi has quite an advanced CT scan that shows results immediately. They have a separate smaller machine that allows deeper look into individual veins.
The observing room shows the MRI on one side and the CT on the other. The MRI machine is thicker than the CT because it can detect even the most minute instances. The MRI room is very empty and clean aside from the waste bins and the machine itself. The machine is like a large magnet, so you cannot bring in any metals (like jewelry) into the room. Also, both the MRI and CT are printed using the same film.
In the ultrasound area there was no patient, but I learned how to operate the machine. There are four probes, each with different functions. One is generally used to check for pregnancy, another is to look closer into the pregnancy, the third is used to look into veins, and the last one is used to look into the kidney and the liver. There are many buttons on the machine panel to adjust the view, such as zooming in, using a 3d view, and even a 4d view. There also sliders that adjust the perspective. On the screen, the image of what they are scanning will appear.
The Micropipette
An ultrasound