Things to know about cardiac care before you join a cardiac care technician course
Cardiothoracic is the department of medicine which deals with hearts and lungs. Its primary focus is towards treating the hearts of patients who have problems with the same. A lab technician course which is directed towards the cardiothoracic field needs excessive care and practice to master. You cannot flutter or fall behind in your studies when you have opted for this department.
But before you go ahead and join this course, there are certain things which are required to be kept in mind by everyone. These things will help you become better at your training and more efficient with your skills.
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Quick on feet
Cardiac care cannot have people working who are slacking on being quick in their thinking. You must be quick and responsive when it comes to following through any tasks. Heart diseases and injuries are usually more critical than other general medical troubles and require an intense amount of care in their period of staying at hospitals and nursing homes. Therefore, you as a technician must also be very quick and responsive.
Getting medicines or delivering lab reports are some of the things which you must be very fast.
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Knowing the name of all the drugs

Knowing the difference between an epidural and a CC is something which you will need to train for. There will be a bunch of drugs and medicines which are involved in the lab teachings. You will need to know the specific name of each one of them and their usage. There can be no mix-up or confusion among these. You need to be very adamant on what you learn and process that accordingly. A good cardiac technician would never mess up the names and functions of the medicines.
In order to be perfect, you need to be attentive and good with memory skills.
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Patient care manners

A large part of being in the medical field is not only learning how to treat patients or cure diseases but also be polite. Bedside manners are very important for people who are working as technicians, lab professionals, nurses, and assistants. You should never be rude to the patients or talk to them in a manner that is not polite. It might get them scared and worried about things which do not even exist. Therefore, this is one of the things which you are expected to know even before you join this training.
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Handling sterile equipment properly
As cardiothoracic assistants to surgeons or physicians, you will need to handle a bunch of equipment and tools which are required to treat patients or for checkups. This might include taking them to radiology or for other checkups in various departments. You must dispose of a syringe after it has been used once. And get all the tools like scalpels, ENT machines, forceps completely sterilized after every single touch. Even if you or someone else has touched them without gloves, they still need to be sterilized with alcohol after every use to maintain hygiene and safety of the patients.
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Learn about the organs

As mentioned earlier, the only organs which are of primary concern in the cardiac department are heart and lungs. It will be very helpful for you if you study these organs in detail. You need to understand how they function and when a patient comes up with symptoms what is wrong with them. Good patient care begins with informed people handling patients. Until and unless you are well aware of their diseases and symptoms, you will not be able to take accurate lab results too.
So buckle up and start preparing!