Madness

Absolute Madness. That is what this entire week has been. I'll only go into my current work situation as it contains enough drama for one blog.

So as everyone knows, I work in a nuclear medicine department at a local internist office. Well the two nuclear reactors that have been down for part of the year have really started to catch up to us. A brief overview: there are only five nuclear reactors in the world. These reactors supply the entire world all the nuclear medicine for all their medical procedures. There are many procedures. None of the reactors are located in the US. Currently two of the five are out of commision. Since early July, the nuclear pharmacies have had trouble getting enough doses to supply their clients. So they limit how many patients we can perform studies on. This past week was a rough week as we usually do 20-25 patients and we only did 13. As you can imagine our physicians aren't happy. We have many patients that need to have this study done and it brings in alot of revenue for us. We also got word that the entire month of August was going to be a nightmare. The pharmacies won't be able to tell us how many doses they can supply us until the day before. That is a scheduling nightmare (my job). On top of that, we currently use a compound called Technetium for both rest and stress injections. We now will be using two diferent compounds. Thallium for rest and Tech for stress. Neither me or the girl I work with are very familiar with Thallium. It has a higher radiation exposure and clears the heart alot quicker. The logistics of test will have to be changed. I also had to design completely different report templates since the protocol is different. It's insane.

This dilema is effecting everyone, everywhere. Hospitals, cardiology practices, etc. However, they get first priority from the pharmacies. We get what's left over - if any.

There is rumor that with in a few years, nuclear medicine will be out of commission. The government wants these studies performed only in the hospitals. For now, we take each day at a time - literally. We don't know when this will be over. I've read these reactors will be down for 6-9 years. I've also read that the shortage will be crucial for atleast one month this year (August?) and then again for six months in 2010. Honestly, we may not survive six months of a shortage like this.

So I'm thankful for my job each day. Even though it's caused a spike in my blood pressure, this week. Madness- abosolute madness!