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Comment by fluidcruft | Hacker News Reader

Pretty sure that at the very least you are not operating the scanner. And the scanner generally nowadays must operate under the plus one staffing model (one certified technologist per scanner plus at least one additional level 2 MRI safety trained staff in the immediate vicinity). So no, you are not "alone".

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He said he's been doing that for a long time. Plenty of time for stuff to happen, and security guidelines were not always as they are now.

An anesthesiologist was never operating an MRI scanner at any point in history.

Indeed, but you won't find yourself alone during the MRI. When you're preparing or finishing the case though, the RX tech and the radiologists often suddenly feel a need for a break. Same thing happens everywhere we go: the anesthesiologist comes in, everyone's here. 2 min later, you look around and everybody magically disappeared.

That's never happened anywhere I work unless you're counting being in the control room as "magically disappearing". To be fair I only have 25 years in the field and don't use AI to answer so what do I know.

Look, he might use AI but I'm not. I also have 20 years in the field, and I've lost count of how many times I found myself alone with a risky patient. Yes, oftentimes people are just 10m away. Yes, that's not supposed to happen. But that's often far enough for us anesthesiologists to wish we'd be somewhere else. Perspectives and empathy matter. Try to put yourself in our shoes, sometimes. For the record, I'm the main hybrid MRI OR guy in my hospital, so I work near MRIs most days.

The only way anything you are saying makes sense is if you are counting people being in the control room as not being there. They can see you, they can hear you, you can hear them. You are not "alone" except in an overly dramatic sense. This goes in triplicate for a hybrid system operating today.

The RX bay over here is like 150m^2, serves 6 MRI rooms, has nooks and corners and doubles as the patient waiting bay. Having the tech busy elsewhere while putting people under or waking them up is not a rarity. I agree the security is better for hybrid rooms, as they have their own separate control rooms and techs won't leave when the machine is running. I don't think I'm being dramatic, but you sure seem to have a cozy job if you're allowed to constantly sit around in the control room while anesthesia is under way.

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