Spotlight on the teams behind Interventional Radiology
Hospital Interventional Radiology teams use advanced training and technology to perform minimally invasive procedures.
Unless you’ve worked directly with the Interventional Radiology (IR) department, you may not realize their scope of services or impact on patient care.
In the most simple terms, Maia Wrice, BSN, RN, the team’s assistant nurse manager, describes IR this way: “We do minimally invasive procedures using fluoroscopy (real-time moving X-rays), ultrasound, and other modalities to guide us.” A closer look reveals the complexity and depth of their work.
“A large majority of what can be done in the operating room (OR) we can do minimally invasively in our labs,” said Joseph Saunders, BS, RT(R), lead IR technologist on the Penn Presbyterian Medical Center team. Saunders explained that his team doesn’t just place abscess drainage tubes, but also stops trauma patients from hemorrhaging by intentionally blocking blood vessels (embolization), removes clots from patients with DVT, and re-establishes arterial blood flow to extremities (recanalization) to help heal wounds.
Utilizing advanced skills and innovative technology, IR provides a variety of diagnostic, therapeutic, and emergent procedures – including chemoembolization for liver cancer, thrombolysis (blood clot removal) and angioplasty for arterial and venous disease, tumor ablations, kyphoplasty for spinal compression fractures, uterine artery embolization for symptomatic fibroids, and much more. The team is at the ready 24/7 to handle any situation, including emergencies.
Consider a patient who arrives with a gunshot wound. “The trauma physician has a choice: OR or IR. With IR, our team will prepare the patient, find the bleed, and embolize the source,” Wrice said. “We can puncture the femoral artery and using catheters, wires, and imaging, go all over their vascular system without having to make an incision.”
The team at Penn Presbyterian includes a scheduler, nine nurses, eight technologists, two physician assistants (PAs), and two attending interventional radiologists . The team collaborates daily with other departments, from Oncology and Nephrology to Trauma, Neurosurgery, and Vascular.
A highly trained team
IR nurses are required to have a nursing degree plus two years of critical care experience before completing a six-to-eight-week orientation. Technologists must have a degree in radiology and experience in another imaging modality before undergoing the 8-to-12-week training program.
“Our techs play a critical role in all our procedures. At other hospitals, IR techs typically set up the table, prepare supplies, and circulate through the room. But at PPMC, they also scrub in and assist. They have to understand the procedures so they can anticipate what the doctor needs. They’re very involved,” Wrice added.
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Staff members shared aspects of the specialty they especially appreciated.
“With the use of live fluoroscopy, catheters, and wires, we have the ability to navigate throughout the body from a small incision,” said Naomi Willis, BSRT, RT, a radiologic technologist. “You can get treated for cancer and literally walk out the door with a simple bandage.”
“IR is a very dynamic department and the technology is always changing,” said Joseph Saunders, BS, RT(R), a lead radiologic technologist. “Working at Penn Medicine, we have access to this cutting-edge technology.”