I HATE MS: What Doctors Do Not Know #1

GETTING MRIs

About a year ago, I was at the Chicago Rush Hospital Medical Campus getting an MRI with my brother, Chidi.

I get really nervous about MRIs. The first few years when I would do them, it was no big deal. But after realizing how high stakes these diagnostic exams are, it would put me in a panic every time I have had to get one. For this reason, I've asked a number of friends and family members to accompany me. They will just hold my ankle for the entire time and sing to me so that I am reminded that I am not interred while still alive. “Hips Don’t Lie” reminds me that I am just undergoing a simple medical procedure.

MRI Machine 

In the last two weeks, I have gone to Sibley Memorial in Washington, DC and Community Radiology in Medical Center Park in Silver Spring, Maryland. On both occasions, despite being as brave as possible, I had panic attacks. After they placed the white helmet over my head, I felt like I was dying and needed to be removed immediately! This is a completely different experience from the MRI that I had a year ago at Rush Medical Center near downtown Chicago. My experience was so pleasant, I thought that I would never need to be medicated or even have somebody accompany me again.

I was dead wrong.

The response by medical technicians is usually to ask me whether or not I am claustrophobic. They chalk up my distress to not liking to be in small enclosed spaces. But I know this is not the simple truth. The issue for me is not about being in a small enclosed space. My experience at Rush Medical Center helped me to realize that neurologists too often treat us like we are specimens of meat that they need to examine. However, our humanity as patients gets denied from this approach.

For this reason, I'm going to explain how medical facilities can provide a better MRI experience to patients. By applying patient-centered care to the MRI experience and patience, technicians will not have to waste time going back-and-forth with appointments. In addition, we don't have to worry about our neurologists being frustrated with us for not getting those tests done that they told us to get several months ago.

Improving MRI Patient Experience: Signage

When I went to the Community Radiology in Silver Spring’s Medical Center, I arrived about a half an hour late for my appointment. I could not tell which of the three white buildings with a black roof was the correct one to enter to get my MRIs. Following the GPS, I drove to the furthest building but saw that it was completely closed. There were no cars in the parking lot and the space looked dark. Undefeated, I looked at the other two buildings and thought that the one in the middle seemed like it was just a bunch of empty windows. I drove past that center building to the one on the other side of the Medical Campus. As a woman with mobility challenges, it took me a while to pull out my walker, enter the building, and realize there was no entity with the name that I was looking for. Clearly, I was in the wrong building.

Community Radiology in Silver Spring’s Medical Center

At this point, I sat down and called Community Radiology. I, of course, did not reach the people at the actual facility where I was heading, but instead some switchboard operator who clearly lived far away from where I was located. After explaining to them that I was not sure which of the three white buildings with the black roof was the correct one, I think she went on maps.google.com because she figured out that it was actually the center building — the one that I've not yet entered — that housed Community Radiology Associates. Hesitatingly, I walked towards the main entrance of the third building. The lack of signage made me very late to my appointment, wasting the time of medical technicians. It left me very frustrated before I even began the process of trying to get the MRI of my brain, thoracic spine, and cervical spine.

I endeared a similar process the prior week, when I went to Sibley Memorial in Washington, DC. We circled the block a couple of times in order to find the right building where the MRI machines were housed. For some reason, hospitals are OK with wasting patients’ time due to poor signage. Perhaps because they're always building new wings, moving departments around, or building new buildings. These are reasons why signage is even more important so that patients do not get confused about where they're going. Despite asking for advice on where I should park, given my mobility challenges, when I initially made the appointment, it still took a couple of tries to find where I needed to be. Large signs closer to the street would've made my life a lot easier and reduced anxiety before I even stepped into the MRI tube.

Potential signage to aide patients 

Something so simple as putting up signs to tell you where you should be going would make life a lot less stressful on the day of being forced into a tube for an hour.