MRI Buzz Webinar with Matt Rederer

 

Opening Statements / Remarks:

Hi Everyone!

Welcome to the 3rd episode of “Lets Talk MR Safety with Lexie” –  Valentine’s Day Special – #HeForShe

But first, let me ask you, Can men and women ever be business partners? Off the top of your head, name at least one such partnership in our industry today?

Can’t think of any? Let me tell you!

Renowned MR/ MR Safety Specialists and Acclaimed Educators Bill Faulkner and Kristan Harrington are 50-50 business partners at Faulkner and Associates

And then you have me and my dear friend and a prominent MR/MR Safety Specialist and educator himself – Matt Rederer – as those 50-50 Co-Founders  – over at MRI Buzz!!

On that note; it gives me no greater joy / honor than to have my partner and my best friend on my show today. Please welcome Matt Rederer everyone!

Hey Matt!

Questions:

  • From a young staff technologist to now a President of RITE Advantage – a highly acclaimed test prep company – how did all of this come to be?

Matt – Well I would say probably when I was young – I graduated high school –  Went straight to X-Ray school and through the entire process of doing that I kind of gravitated towards MRI and I was offered a job in MRI before I graduated X-Ray school so I ended up trying to study and prepare for those (MRI)  boards after I passed my X-Ray boards and I kind of noticed there was not much out there in terms of trying to be trained in MRI or prepare yourself for those boards – So I decided to try to create something myself – something more of a digital thing. And we started with a CD-ROM. So we actually had CD ROMs, we mail to people’s houses and they would be able to perform these mock exams – prepare themselves for it – and it kind of just evolved from there – You know – So it was just something that I thought there was a need for – And then we just created a course to help people pass.

 

 

 

 

  • What factors led to the formation of RITE Advantage?

Matt – Well I would say – probably it was when I was becoming an MRI Technologist and had trained, studied, and created this product – my sister had been an ultrasound tech and she had passed her ultrasound boards so we said – hey why not do this together? – I’ll create you know an ultrasound board and then I said I also have MRI and we decided to come together and create RITE Advantage from that – and over time she decided it wasn’t really for her and so she kind of you know decided to give up that part of it so – but that’s how we came to be so we just decided to be – a well-rounded registry preparation company –

 

  • We have been colleagues for the longest time and I know that you are multi-modal /credentialed in X-Ray and CT. RITE Advantage was initially formed with the intention of training individuals in CT and Ultrasound as well as helping them prep for their respective board examinations. Why did you decide to restructure and shift the focus solely to MR/MR Safety prep?

Matt –  I would probably say it takes a lot – and – if you want to be good at something you should focus on your strengths and your passions – you know – it makes it more enjoyable – so yes we had X-Ray products – So I created this X-Ray brand and then we created a CT brand because I am a certified CT – I teach physics and CT – But MRI is my passion so I decided to stick with MRI – develop it – focus on all the different aspects from physics to safety and just kind of focus on that and eventually – down the road – we might start expanding again outside of that – But I just kind of wanted to tone things down and focus it on one and then we can expand from that point on – if need be.

 

  • What is your take on the Colombini incident?

Matt – So this incident was horrible – I mean – I think that we are looking at a time where we didn’t have standards – So there were not these best practices in MRI – we didn’t have a guidance document – you see – our guidance document- we didn’t have any of that – this incident occurred – we know that when this happened there was a lot of issues that needed to be addressed and from that point on spun this whole idea that we need to develop safer practices in MRI – Best practices in MRI – I mean prior to this, there were no zones in MRI – There was none of that – And now, from this incident, spun what we see today in MR Safety and I think the important takeaway from this and what I like to focus on is this incident was horrible and I don’t think anyone will argue that but this incident also saved many lives down the road up till today because we created safer practices from this – it brought light to problems that we were dealing with in terms of MR Safety – So this incident was horrible but I think truly it has saved lives since then by putting focus on MR Safety.

Disclaimer: Matt and I extend our heartfelt sympathies to all those affected by the Colombini incident. The aforementioned event is being analyzed for educational purposes using only educational terms.

 

  • What, according to you, are the top 3 MR Safety concerns that the newer technologists need to keep an eye out for today?

Matt –  Okay, So 3 concerns I would say:

  • Education is the first one – I am such a firm believer on education – Education is power – So the more you know – the more confident you are – There is nothing worse than being faced with a situation where you are just looking at it and saying “I am making the right decision” or you going home that same day thinking to yourself; “Oh, did I make the right call? Did I accidentally burn that patient? Am I gonna get a call tomorrow saying that this patient was hurt?” Going into any situation with a lack of confidence is not only dangerous for your patient – it’s dangerous for you and your career – Now the knowledge piece of it all is because now it gives you confidence – So the decisions that you make today and with your patient, you don’t second-guess yourself – You can evaluate risk competently – and then address those risks accordingly – and consult with your radiologists on how to proceed.
  • The second biggest one and it’s still a concern in my opinion- but it’s something that’s been ignored – It’s the hearing protection – I think a lot of technologists think; “Okay, well I am just gonna give them earplugs, throw in your ears, do your best you can to get them in there” – And they don’t realize that there’s a lot of reported incidences that are associated with hearing damage from an MRI – Now newer systems are a lot quieter and we can take it into consideration but it doesn’t change the fact that machine is still capable of producing very loud sounds and we need to be able to educate our patients and make sure they are safe during that exam – from that perspective –
  • The third one I would probably say is that – There’s so many assumptions – So there’s some – there’s a lot of assumptions in the field – that we are going to perform this MRI but they had an MRI last week – so they are fine to have one today – so they don’t have to fill out a screen sheet – “I don’t have to ask them questions” – But the problem is a lot could have happened in that interim that we don’t necessarily want to just assume that – that patient is safe – I got a perfect story – Okay – So we had a technologist and I was overhearing him talking to a patient and he had said to a patient; “You are fine, you are fine to go “ So I decided to listen a little bit more and the patient had told him that the patient had his pacemaker removed a year ago – So completely removed pieces – “there’s nothing in me” – So technologist said – “Okay well we’ll go ahead with the scan and so I just asked the technologist to come over here and ask him a question and I told him I said “Let’s look at an X-Ray before we put him in the MRI” and so you know there was no X-Ray – So that technologist gave me a little bit of a slack as in “C’mon man, the patient’s fine, they had it removed” – And I said, “Well I would feel much better seeing an X-Ray, making sure that we are okay” – So we decided to go to a radiologist, order an X-Ray, just to be safe and the area had abandoned lead still in – okay – I think we all know that if a patient has a pacemaker removed, there’s a high likelihood that leads are retained but what was very interesting about this and for those MR Safety buffs Is that when I measured this leads as an educational piece for this technologist, we were scanning the patient at 3 Tesla, so the length of this wire was 11 centimeters, so we are approaching that resonant wavelength, the resonant frequency wavelength for that implant that could produce the highest heating and so there was a high risk – And again there’s a piece here I am missing , so what we are scanning on this patient was a thoracic spine, so we knew that we were exposing this area to high RF energy – And so the assumption was; “Hey I listened to the patient, I didn’t think anything outside of what the patient had told me”, and he might have made the wrong call in that situation based off of that assumption – And so I think there’s this big, there’s an area here that needs to be focused on and we should not assume anything in MRI – We should always be vigilant on anything that could potentially happen –

 

  • What is your opinion with regards to – THE KANAL METHOD? As you own a test prep company helping students prepare for the ABMRS MRSO/MRSE/MRMD exams, sum The Kanal Method up for us?

Matt –  I would say the Kanal Method is probably the most logical approach available and I think anyone who assesses risk does this – they just might not call it the Kanal methodology – but it’s the most logical approach at evaluating risk – So essentially you would start with “What is the implant? And where is it? Or a foreign body or whatever it is” – So identify the location of this threat and identify what you are actually scanning on the patient so now you can evaluate risk based off those two facts – So you have the static magnetic field and we would say, “Okay, I have a static magnetic field, is this object ferrous? Or is it near anything that’s vital to evaluate risk based off of the static magnetic field? The time-varying magnetic fields with gradient fields and RF fields and then we also take a look at – “Do we have information on this implant? Do we know what it is?” – So I can look at the MR Conditions, find out those manufacturer conditions, and see if I can actually scan that safely – And so I think this Kanal Method is the most logical approach at evaluating risk on an implant – So I think it’s definitely valid but I think a lot of people that have not heard of it still perform the same process but they just don’t call it the Kanal Method because it’s just the best and most logical approach at scanning a patient or evaluating risk. 

  • What would you say needs to be done with regards to safer MR Care for the acute patient population – such as those with autism and other disabilities? You know I am working on a project like this with Barbara Nugent,

Matt –  Oh that’s great! Barbara’s awesome! I love Barbara – Okay, so I think that’s wonderful as an MRI Technologist you are trained to help those claustrophobic patients or difficult patients that have certain pathologies that may be limited in some way but when we start moving to that class of patients that are autistic or have other disabilities – a lot of technologists don’t have that experience unless they are working around those patients often and these patients are very important to reach and a lot of speaking to an autistic child or adult – there’s a lack of connection – My daughter is autistic, so I know that when I talk to her, it looks like she’s not listening to me all right, she’s not communicating with me but I know she’s just doing it on a different level – there’s just this slight delay – there’s this perfect situation – Okay – So I have a story for you Lexie – So I went to my daughter’s school – her name is Reese – So I went to her school to have lunch with her – So I brought her lunch and we sat down and she din’t look at me once, okay, she’s autistic, so we sat down, we had lunch together, I tried talking to her, she wasn’t responding, at the end she would say, “hey, can you stay longer,” and I said, “no, no, you got to get back to school” But when I got home that night, you know, I am driving home thinking you know, I hope she appreciated it, I didn’t really talk to her much, she really didn’t look at me, but later that night, she came up to me and said, “Daddy, that meant so much to me, that you came to my school.” And so I think, the lesson here is that, in the moment, when we are talking to these patients, we might not see that connection, we might think that they are not paying attention to us and we are wasting our breath but really we are not – they are paying attention in their own way – “If they connect with us in the same way that we are used to and what we consider socially acceptable”  and this leads to this lack of understanding or communication between the two of them – But there are still – there’s still this emotional connection there – It’s just done on a different level – So I think what you are doing is amazing – I think that it’s a great project to work on

 

  • Sum this up – A day in the life of MR Specialist/Educator – Matt Rederer?

Matt –  Okay well, I have a lot on my plate, as I am an MRI tech still because I want to keep my skills up – I am a Chief Technologist and the MR Technical and Safety Expert for Advocate Health and I represent the advocate side of things. I also run RITE Advantage and then I am working with an awesome business partner at MRI Buzz – So, that’s also a project and something that we are really focused on – I teach at Elgin Community College and I teach them MRI and CT physics and then I have a podcast called MRI Uncensored, so there’s a lot that I am working on.

 

My day typically starts at 5:00 in the morning, that’s when my shift starts and then I typically just end my day 11:00 at night with everything I need to do and then start it all over. So there’s long days but it’s just amazing – it’s amazing to be able to do all those things –

 

  • Share a personal anecdote with regards to MR Safety at your workplace?

Matt –  Alright – So, this week I was walking to the hall talking to a patient and a Radiologist was kind of behind me and the patient told me they had a cardiac stent and so you know knowing what I know about cardiac stents and in the research that’s out there now I wasn’t completely concerned and based off of our hospital policies, it’s something that we should, we were not too concerned with this, the Radiologist pulled aside and said “Matt, you are not seeing this patient right”…I said, “Well, why wouldn’t I?” So the Radiologist said, “Well, it’s going to pull out of their heart, they are gonna, it’s gonna fly out of their heart” …And I started laughing, because I thought he was joking with me. But, he stared at me confused as in, “why are you laughing at me?” So, we, you know, obviously, we have to listen to a Radiologist and we have to make sure that we go through the proper process, I waited for him to leave and I asked one of our other Radiologists on the same question now – because one Radiologist just told me not to scan the patient – so I have to make sure I get a Radiologist approval to scan this patient – So I had to go to our MRMD to talk to him and he’s like “Why are you even asking me this question – I would say that this is a case of “I am that Radiologist” and well, a story that kind of sums that up – But that would be my anecdote –

 

  • You happen to be the administrative chair for the Advocate MRI Committee – What happens there? Do you oversee enforcement and/or regulation of MR Safety policies?

Matt –  Yes, so, the committee actually started just as an MRI Committee – So, we talked about MRI issues trying to standardize across the system but there was – like you said – there’s this gap- we also have to consider MRI but we have to consider MR Safety – There are almost two different things we have to discuss that – up to that point there was really no designated MRMDs/MRSOs/MRSEs for the system – and so the idea that I wanted to introduce is identify these individuals – so we identified an MRSO at every site and MRMD at every site – and then we got a, we had Physicist, we work with a Physicists group that became our MRSE group that we work with and we started to spin this off – Up to this point, everything was going great – But, then Advocate decided to take a different turn with the whole process and wanted to focus more on body parts specific  – So now they have an MRI Musculoskeletal Group and and MRI Neurology and each one of those groups address you know their contrast concerns and the safety concerns within them – So they just took a different direction, I just consult with them at this point – So the MRI Committee dissolved but turned into something a little bit bigger – So that’s kind of where they at, at this point 

 

  • Most importantly, what factors led to the foundation of MRI Buzz and why did you choose me as co-president/ co-founder?

Matt –  Okay, no, that’s a great question! So MRI Buzz, I didn’t have a name for it, until I met you, Lexie – We worked on that together, we figured out that – that was the best name for our Project – but the idea was to educate the individuals – again that’s probably the most important thing we can do – to build the confidence of technologists in the field and unless it’s kind of in-your-face and it’s delivered in a way that you can respond well to it –  in a community sense where you can come there and feel like you are a part of something and you can build yourself up from there that is the most important thing and the best way to learn and so we decided – I had this idea of just saying, “Hey, why don’t we create a community?”

But when I met you Lexie, you kind of had this different spin on it, you were so passionate about building community and delivering this education that I mean it was kind of a no-brainer for me to work with you on this project and even though I was thinking about the whole MRI concept, for a couple of years, when I met you, it became a time to actually do that and you have got such good writing skills and you are so good at just networking – and doing what you do – and so it was just a no-brainer for me –

 

  • How important do you think male-female business dynamics are in our industry today and what is your take on “He for She” / Gender equality at the workplace?

Matt – Well I would say that – there is – I will recognize that there is a difference between gender in the workplace –  and there shouldn’t be – people should be hired for a job based off of what they are qualified for – not for their gender – and so I see there is an issue there – I just don’t feel there should be one –  I think that if you could do a job well, it doesn’t matter who you are, you should be you, you should be compensated for that and treated equal for whoever in that position, you would compensate in that position – so you shouldn’t be treated any different for any of that – So, I kind of look at it, as a wide, “Why do we even have this issue?” You know what I mean, like, why is this even an issue? – You are hiring someone for a position – You should treat them, you know, equally for that position – Not for you know, not for their gender – So, that’s just my take on it –

 

On that note, we come to the end of yet another MRI Buzz MR Safety Education for Change Initiative. Thank you so much Matt for being here with me today.

Male-female business relationships and He for She is such an uncharted territory and I couldn’t be more proud to be thought of / in consideration for a partnership at MRI Buzz. Thank you so much once again Matt!!

If all of you like the taping today, please do not forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe. Also, do make sure to register for Matt’s RITE Advantage MRSO/MRSE/MRMD prep program – the information for which – can be found at the end of the video –

You may also contact Matt if you have any questions with regards to today’s webinar, RITE Advantage, and/or MR/MR Safety topics using the contact us feature at MRI Buzz and/or through our affiliated social media handles. 

I will see you next week with a new guest and a new topic, as part of MRI Buzz’ new MR Safety Education for Change Initiative. Good bye for now!