Best Practices in Service Engineer Imaging
As service engineers, we always need to remember that it is our responsibility to ensure the underlying quality of the imaging chain. When doing training classes on nuclear cameras here at Universal Medical, one of the aspects of servicing the gamma camera that we stress is image quality. Students must fully understand that image quality is not the results with flood or uniformity corrections applied, rather true image quality is determined by evaluating uniformity prior to the flood or uniformity correction applied.
In our training classes, we use the analogy of a layer cake to help explain the concept of how image chain corrections are layered on each other to provide a quality image. This is true for most corrections. Uniformity or flood corrections should be is the icing on a cake. Its sole purpose is to make the image “look better”. Uniformity / flood corrections can give the technologist the impression that the final image reflects the true image quality. However, the real image quality is actually the underlying quality prior to uniformity / flood corrections applied. Uniformity / flood corrections can mask underlying image artifacts. It is the service engineers responsibility to ensure that is not happening.