The transition from a rad tech to an application specialist
I hung up the phone, still not quite aware of what had just happened. I did say I was interested. Traveling the world was my dream. How do you say no to a job opportunity that combines your career with the thing you love the most? Instantly, my mind took me back to when I first started working as a RTT. I was a fresh graduate back then, with no experience. I was lucky to have joined the team at that time because they had just bought a new Linac, and they were expecting training from the original equipment manufacturer.
One morning, a lady arrived, with her fancy black leather suitcase, greeted us with a large smile, introducing herself as an applications specialist, coming from abroad to teach us how to make the most out of our new machine. Seeing her for the first time, I felt a desire to be just like her, to be traveling the world and sharing my knowledge with peers. And this thought never crossed my mind again after that morning. To be honest, I didn’t work for it, it was like a dream laying there in my subconscious, waiting for a chance to come to life.
It’s been almost 4 years now, and being an applications specialist still fascinates me. I get to travel to countries I never imagined I would visit, meet new people, discover new cultures, and spread knowledge in places where it’s truly needed. There is nothing more rewarding than feeling involved in making cancer care available in regions where people still die from illnesses that are curable elsewhere in the world. This shifted the human aspect of my job from directly treating cancer patients, to training other RTTs to deliver high-quality treatments to their patients. At the same time, the “depressing” routine I used to suffer from when I was practicing in the clinic disappeared. To be honest, I sometimes miss it, especially when I have to face the stressful situations that come along with being an applications specialist.
When I say stressful situations, I am talking about constant mobility, dealing with long hours of layovers at the airports, spending some holidays away from home, missing family and friends when on long missions, having to deliver training in less-than-ideal conditions in developing countries, dealing with people who are resistant to learning for a reason or another, and many more… Yet, all these situations do not compare to the one I went through in June 2020.
It was during the peak time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Travel restrictions had started to suffocate many industries, one of which was ours. Nobody was prepared for such a disaster. Training applications had always been known to be held onsite, at the customer’s, right in their bunkers. And while many companies had initiated work from home, and turned to online platforms to connect their teams in order to reduce the impact of this horrible situation on their industries, it was a huge challenge for us to do the same. I mean, how do you train anyone to use a linac remotely? And let’s say you did find ways to do that, can you be sure that these people are safely working their machines?
But the pandemic did not seem to be reaching an end anytime soon. All the indicators were pointing to a long-lasting situation that kept spreading. There was no way we could stop application training until further notice. Customers in many places had finalized the installation of their linacs and were waiting for trainers to kick off the treatment of their patients. The lives of many were going to be at stake if we would not find alternative solutions. One of these customers was a hospital in Libya. It was a newly established radiation therapy department, bringing many promises to the sick people there. I got a request from my superiors to deliver remote training to the team on this site. At first, it was a shock. But I had no time to process it. A few weeks before the starting date of that training were all I had to implement ways to deliver a remote linac training. I had no other choice but to make this happen.
My colleagues and I teamed up and gathered our efforts to find efficient, and most importantly, safe methods to deliver the training. We came up with PowerPoint presentations, graphics, real images taken from the sites, and every piece of tool that seemed helpful to transfer the knowledge correctly. On the day of the training, I connected to the customer’s system via an online platform that allows remote access and control, coupled with a webcam, and a microphone. I made sure a local Field Service Engineer accompanied the team at all times to avoid issues as much as possible. It was a big challenge to transfer the information without direct eye contact with the trainees. I could see them through the webcam, but there is something to live interactions that no advanced technology can measure up to.
Thankfully, the results were satisfying. It took twice the effort I usually put onsite, but I was happy it worked. However, there was an even bigger challenge during go-live. A go-live is when the customer treats the first few patients with the assistance of the applications specialist. All the stress I felt during training doubled at that moment. We’re not dealing with objects anymore, there is a human being lying on that treatment table, thousands of miles away. I could only monitor him from behind my screen.
I did trust my learning skills, I was sure I taught them well, I poured all the experience I had from my work at the clinic into my training, but that wasn’t enough to calm my worries. In radiation therapy, there is no room for mistakes, there is no second chance; a single error can have a tremendous impact on the life of the patient. Yet, I couldn’t show any signs of hesitation in front of my trainees; this could affect their confidence and expand their fear. This is what we needed the least. All that said, I buried my hesitations somewhere in my mind, gathered all the focus I could find, disconnected myself from my surroundings, as if I traveled through that screen to Libya. In my mind, I was standing right there with my trainees. In the end, the patient was successfully treated, everybody was satisfied, no damages happened. At that moment, I felt a great relief. I don’t recall going through a more stressful situation in my career until this day.
I frequently think about my brave Libyan colleagues. Though they were not able to have a trainer physically present among them, guiding them every step of the workflow, having their backs if they mess up, they succeeded in safely treating a cancer patient. If it wasn’t for these heroes, that patient wouldn’t have received his treatment. And this is only one of many other patients who have been treated since that training day, and are still being treated every day.
Not all heroes wear capes. My Libyan colleagues can prove it, and I’m so lucky I got the chance to know them, to work with them. Even though I didn’t shake their hands, and I didn’t look them straight in the eyes, they never seemed distant. Their attitude, their courage, and their presence connected us. This connection seemed to me stronger and deeper than what I usually experience onsite. I always feel happy after a successful training but this was a one-of-a-kind experience, accompanied with unique feelings of joy, satisfaction, relief, and pride. I was proud of myself, proud of my courageous trainees, and a bit of my faith in humanity was restored on this day that I will remember for the rest of my life.
This experience among others renewed my appreciation for rad techs around the world. It recontextualized my days as a rad tech where I had the means and the training, compared to underserved regions where training can be sparse, and treatment can be less effective due to lack of funds. I felt fulfilled as an applications specialist, where my actions and my job have an impact on those I train, and by consequence, surely improve the lives of patients receiving treatment. Every time I train RTTs, I am patient focused even in the cases where we are training on phantoms, that is what drives my aspirations for excellence in training my peers. My first priority is making sure that they know how to properly care for their patient.
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