Patient Care and Quality Control
Core concepts
Patient care begins with two identifiers, verification of the order and procedure, and pregnancy/breastfeeding screening when applicable. Explain the procedure, obtain consent per policy, assess allergies, renal function, and ability to cooperate, and use safe venipuncture technique. Recognize infiltration/extravasation, adverse reactions, and contamination; instruct patients to void when appropriate and drink fluids if protocol allows. Quality control is instrument-specific: dose calibrators require constancy, accuracy, linearity, and geometry checks; gamma cameras require daily uniformity/flood and energy checks plus resolution and sensitivity testing; survey meters and well counters require routine checks; PET systems have daily and periodic QC. Record results and investigate failures before patient use.
Traps
Questions often swap QC frequency or instrument. Daily constancy is not the same as annual accuracy, and a camera flood is not a dose-calibrator test. Do not use an expired kit or an uncalibrated instrument. Extravasation changes the administered activity and image quality; document and follow policy. A pregnant or breastfeeding patient needs protocol-specific guidance, not automatic cancellation.
Worked example
Before the first patient, perform the dose-calibrator constancy check with a long-lived source. If the reading differs from the expected value by more than the facility’s action limit-commonly around 10%-do not use the calibrator until the problem is resolved. Rule of thumb: QC is performed before patient use, documented, and repeated at the required interval.