By Tricia Trammell, CRA, FAHRA, BA, R.T. (R)(M)(QM)(BS), BHCN
Imaging Operations Manager, Moncrief & Las Colinas
I have been an imaging professional my entire adult life. I have always been proud of my career. I was also able to raise a family while cultivating my career. Over the past 25 years, I have been personally ambitious. I sought certifications, registries and advancements in opportunities. I have been active in professional organizations with a sincere desire to make a meaningful contribution to the imaging profession. Currently, I manage an outpatient multi-modality imaging center for an academic hospital ranked No. 1 in Texas, and 20th in the nation. It is also nationally ranked in 11 adult specialties. I have been with this organization for over three years and there is no place I would rather be! Indeed, the very reason I wanted to come to this organization is because of the life-saving care they provided to my own mother years ago.
For the past few years, I have been in that weird phase of adulthood where your children are no longer children, but they still need support, and your parents are now the ones you worry about when you lay down at night. And, I have lost several people I love. I have started to completely rethink what success is. I have had all these ideas in my head over the years about what I thought success was, such as if I got a master’s degree or if all my sons graduated from college. Of course, the last one is ridiculous. I cannot make another person’s accomplishment or lack thereof a measure of my own success.
Focusing on how I can make a meaningful contribution to the imaging profession has also been top of mind. Is it through writing or doing a live webinar on a topic I am passionate about? Or maybe doing a lecture at a conference or serving on a committee? I enjoy all these things and I plan to keep doing them. But I had a truly organic opportunity when my son, Will, came to me for some career advice. He had graduated from a local college and was exploring the imaging profession and wanted more information about MRI. I have never done an MRI, but I had a lot to say about patient care. We had some very candid conversations about the commitment it takes to consciously make the decision to take care of other human beings for the rest of your working life. I think that is such an important conversation for any person entering into the health care profession. And at the tender age of 22, sitting across the kitchen table, he told me that he was ready to make that commitment.
About that same time, an MRI training program, began a collaboration with our academic organization. Will applied for the program and began his didactic studies. A few months later, he applied at our academic organization as an MRI trainee, a full-time position where he would assist in the department and learn MRI. Will completes his program in just a few short weeks and will then take the ARMRIT exam. He has already applied for a full-time position as an MRI technologist. He is ready to be a full-blown MRI technologist and, to be honest, ready to move out of his parent’s home! Last night, I was doing my laundry and washing my scrubs. I offered to wash Will’s if he had any. He brought a few things down. Our organization requires navy logoed scrubs and jackets. When I was going through the laundry, I had to ask, “Is this one yours or mine?” The question made me smile. My son is an imaging professional and works for the No. 1 hospital in Texas. This is all on his own merit. We are not on the same campus. MRI is a modality that I have never performed in my tenure. I am so proud of him. And of all the contributions I have made, helping to steer an amazing person with a servant’s heart towards the imaging profession is the best contribution I could ever make.
I continue to strive for success. I will continue to pursue it, chase it. But I also know that in many ways, I have already achieved it. Not because of a ridiculous box that I can check because of an achievement. But rather because I have four sons that are good, kind and generous humans.
– Tricia Trammell, CRA, FAHRA, BA, R.T. (R)(M)(QM)(BS), BHCN, is an Imaging Operations Manager with UT Southwestern Moncrief & Las Colinas.
