X-ray at Home is Rad

Imagine trying to teach radiographic positioning without a laboratory! Heather Schmuck '02 M'13, Clinical Associate Professor of Radiologic and Imaging Sciences, says her students have risen to the challenge.

“Since our program requires students to demonstrate competency on their radiographic procedures before they can perform in the clinic, I came up with the idea of a virtual lab comp for both my RADT308 course and RADT318 course,” said Schmuck. “I did a tutorial video explaining my expectations and highlighting some different ideas of how to create their own ‘X-ray room’ to showcase their positioning skill sets virtually.”

Schmuck elicited her son’s cooperation to serve as a model for the typical positions she would ordinarily teach within the lab setting and uploaded those to Panopto. She then created a separate audio with directions for assignment requirements (Powerpoint slide). Each student then created a video to demonstrate all aspects of the chosen exam for their peers.

Joy Cook '03 M'09, Associate Professor and Chair of the USI Radiologic and Imaging Sciences Program, said that she and Schmuck created alternative assignments as well for students unable to complete their clinical hours due to the pandemic. Schmuck’s students were asked to find and critique images of radiology examinations and review radiographic positioning and procedures in a digital presentation. For Cook’s online CT/MR clinical course, she created a similar alternative assignment, but the focus was COVID-19 and its presentation on Computed Tomography (CT) images. 

"These are just a few examples of how we are being creative to achieve course objectives while making it meaningful or students," said Cook.

Caption: Heather Schmuck showed her student how to make a collimator out of a flashlight. In X-ray, a collimator is a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves. Schmuck’s son helped demonstrate radiology positioning at her home using the homemade X-ray collimator.