Correlation of Open Lab X and Students’ Final Grades

Open ended laboratory or open lab as it is known to the Radiological Technology students is an invaluable tool that the Radiological Technology Department provides to help the students become better radiographers. During the 2nd and 3rd semester, open labs become a total hour commitment which means the students have more flexibility to complete their open lab requirement. However, in the fourth semester, there is no requirement for an open lab for the second year students. Through surveys and final grade assessments, we can study how utilizing this department resource impacts both the first and second year students. In surveying the Radiological students, we will investigate whether outside factors impact how both first and second year students use this resource. As the semester progressed during Spring 2020, two of the rooms became inoperable, did this impact attendance and utilization of the open lab. Do radiological students continue use if there is no open lab requirement. In addition, we can compare data from other years and see what trends and commitments impact the use of open lab. In other universities that use open lab, they have demonstrated that using this resource pushes students to self-think and to formulate their own strategies while applying their understanding of concepts. In the end, students are self-directed, reflective, who can think critically, all the while building on the skills that are highly desirable in the field of medical imaging. In the end, is the student a better technologist with the additional open lab hours or does open lab not reflect the reality of the healthcare field

Cultural Competence Amongst Undergraduate Healthcare Students (Spring 2019)

As students in the healthcare field, we want to be able to provide care that best serves the needs of a culturally diverse patient body. This study aims to look at whether healthcare students at City Tech are able to clearly define and understand the concepts of cultural competence and implicit bias in their healthcare encounters. Our research expands upon existing data from the previous year. We opened the scope of the project to include students in non-healthcare majors to understand how the general student population perceives their healthcare encounters. While focusing on improving our data analysis, we distributed two revised questionnaires: one for healthcare students and one for general education. The results from this revised study will give us a look into the students’ current understanding of implicit bias and cultural competence, and help us with patient interactions in our clinical encounters

Covid-19 Impact on Radiology Students’ Distance Learning

Distance learning (DL) is a teaching tool that offers education to students remotely in various locations (Ruiz, 2006). The increase in distance learning education is evident in all types of educational programs including those in Radiologic Sciences. DL education programs are expected to comply with all standards just as traditional programs are (Aaron, 2015). With a traditional class setting, knowledge is taught at a given time and day, which is structured in terms of course development and attendance. It does not factor in the domestic and familial responsibilities of the students outside the classroom walls. What happens when a pandemic creates a widespread stoppage of human movement and changes in-classroom teaching to distance learning. How do students adapt? Can they adapt? How do educators teach when the classroom shrinks to the size of a computer monitor? What happens to the clinical, hands-on portion of the education? Many questions arise when a traditional university classroom setting moves abruptly to distance learning. With the distribution of surveys, we hope to analyze how students coped with DL, its evolution and efficiency of course material distribution over the remaining Spring 2020 semester

Radiologic contrast-Induced transmetallation In mineral rich fruits: X-ray imaging to Understand Heat Cycling during Climate Change and Map Metal Redistribution in Biological media for Biomedical Applications

Heat cycling due to climate change can affect hydrated protein or carbohydrate functions, the latter is not well studied. The project started with involving the study of heat-stressed carbohydrate behavior when bulk water was partly stripped from carbohydrates in model microwaved fruits and vegetables, like apples and sweet potatoes (that are mineral-rich) and was set in mineral exchange competition with toxic metals like Gadolinium and chelating complexes like iodinated EDTA. These are common radiologic contrast medias that strongly absorb x-rays and are currently implicated in man-made environmental toxins. Our goal was to map diffusion of injected heavy atoms as well as that of native minerals as a possible result of a metal exchange or “transmetallation”. This is a new concept for metal ion-induced toxicity and our work perhaps is the first imaging demonstration of transmetallation in live biological media. The second phase involved detection of transmetallation in one fruit model, fresh apples, but expressed in four different apple varieties common in North America consisting of different PH and mineral balances. These fruits were treated with contrast media and radiographed under mammography equipment with low kV x rays. This was another way to explore transmetallation induced by toxic heavy atoms from the medical industry for carbohydrate systems with different amounts of iron, magnesium, potassium in their biochemical pools. Low kV x-rays are sensitive to small mineral differences in model biological media and may provide insight to in vivo applications as in various tumors with different pH differences or in infection with metal-dependent bacterial growth. Differential x-ray absorption maps due to radiologic contrast-induced transmetallation could reveal different grades for tumors and help guide treatment plans. Low dual kV CT systems are available today and our work may help develop new tumor grading and infection management using metal chelation to starve metal-dependent bacteria

Developing Ionic Nanomaterials for Biomedical Applications: Surface Chemistry and Morphologic Imaging

Microscopic properties of various radiologic contrast materials are studied for weak to strong surface interactions in model fruits. These interactions are imaged under various ionic environments as present in multiple, common fruit systems. Low and high X-ray energies may show different imaging noise reflective of scattered radiation from iron, manganese, and other metal ions in fruits. This will be compared with MRI image noise on similar systems obtainable from collaborating MRI research students (see Bleidis Buitrago et al, in this poster session)

Interfacial Dynamics and Ionic Transport of Radiologic Contrast Media in Carbohydrate Matrix: Utility and Limits of X-Ray Imaging

Hello, our names are Lin Mousa and Hayley Sanchez, this semester we participated in a research project dedicated to analyzing the interactions of contrast media with the molecular components of fruits to compare how they would react with the human brain. This project involved the injection of fruits with varying contrasts and the imaging of the diffusion and interactions of the contrast within the fruits with X-rays. With setup technical parameters on the x-ray equipment images were taken with identical setups at an hourly rate for several days. The final results of this experiment indicated that contrasts such as Gadolinium destroyed the water barrier faster, therefore making it significantly more toxic compared to the other contrasts being used such as iodine. These results are relevant now and for future experiments because further steps can be taken to understand the toxicity of contrasts that are used in the everyday health field within the human body

A Study of Cultural Competence and Implicit Bias Amongst Healthcare Students

Cultural competence is defined as the ability of providers and organizations to effectively deliver equitable and unbiased health care that meet the social, cultural, and linguistic needs of a culturally diverse patient body. By 2050, minority populations will increase to 48 percent of the U.S. population and Hispanics will represent 24.4 percent of the total population (U.S. Census, 2010). This demographic shift brings challenges and opportunities to universities and organizations alike to create policies and curriculums that foster quality health care amongst students, while also contributing to the eradication of implicit biases that may unwittingly perpetuate healthcare disparities amongst racial and ethnic minority groups. Our research looks to answer the critical question of whether or not health care students are adequately prepared by their universities to deliver healthcare services that are culturally competent and sensitive? Are students aware of the importance of implicit biases and what measures can be taken on an institutional level to ensure that healthcare students are adequately prepared to deliver equitable healthcare to all minority groups. This study looks to gauge the understanding of cultural competence amongst a group of City Tech healthcare students by utilizing a cross-cultural survey of cultural competence questions dealing with poverty, age, stereotypes, illiteracy, homophobia, language, religion, and racism. Our data and research results suggest that many health care students are not able to properly define, nor fully implement cultural competence and sensitivity in their clinical settings. This data is significant because administrators and educators need to incorporate more learning strategies and relevant clinical training so that students may enter the work force better equipped to deliver the highest quality of care to all patients, regardless of race, ethnicity, cultural background, English proficiency or literacy

A Survey Based-Study Reviewing the career opportunities for student in Radiological Technology

Recent graduates lack the knowledge of many career opportunities there is after earning a Radiology Technology (RT) certification. The purpose of this study is to investigate how much knowledge students have as a student becomes certified for RT. This study will also represent RT workers\u27 experience today. Questionnaires will be spread to the students in order to determine the level of knowledge of career opportunities they have in the career. The in-depth questions will target the career options in the radiology field; they also will include questions that ask for the age and demographics of students forming the part of the survey. Surveys are going to be analyzed and converted to excel in order to compare students\u27 knowledge and also include tech experience when earning certification for a new modality in medical imaging

COVID-19 Impact On Radiologic Imaging Students Learning

The spread of COVID-19 has impacted how students learn. Traditionally, information is delivered face-to-face. In-person learning provides students the ability to engage, participate, and encourages one-on-one student-teacher interaction. Distanced learning has caused students to transition online due to the unprecedented spread of COVID-19. Classes are conducted via zoom, where students can join a class through a zoom meeting ID and password. The objective of this study is to analyze data gathered by the Radiologic Imaging department at New York City College of Technology on how students feel about this academic transition. This research aims to analyze the impact of COVID-19 on the academic and educational experience of Radiologic Imaging Students .We will analyze the Radiographic Imaging department\u27s student’s ability to understand concepts via zoom as compared to an in-person class. The ability to understand radiographic concepts and apply them in the lab and clinic is crucial for the development of that student. Lab practice is a necessity to conceptualize topics and apply the material that was given to us to upskill our knowledge. Reducing the spread of COVID-19 is a substantial concern for everyone, but we aim to survey the impact of distanced learning and the change in the structure of these students’ academics and educational experiences

Cultural Competence Amongst Undergraduate Healthcare Students (Spring 2018)

In response to the growing issue of health care disparities amongst the diverse populations in the United States, more medical programs are including cultural competency education as part of their undergraduate curriculum. As students in the healthcare field, we want to be able to understand and provide care that best serves the needs of a culturally diverse patient body. This study aims to look at whether healthcare and non-healthcare students at City Tech are able to clearly define and understand the concepts of cultural competence and implicit bias in their healthcare encounters