Inside Medicine: Nuclear medicine nurse

Kate finds paperwork the hardest challenge

In a series focusing on medical specialisms, the BBC News website meets nurse Kate Latus, who talks about nuclear medicine.

This involves the use of radioactive material to image the body and treat disease.

Kate Latus' CV

WHAT IS YOUR JOB?

I train and manage a team of cardiac nurse specialists at the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospital who perform stress tests for patients referred for blood flow scans of the heart.

It is the nurses job to find out everything about the individual, understand their clinical history and physical condition, and then decide the best method of performing a stress test.

I enjoy meeting different patients and being involved in a 'snippet' of their lives. My aim is always to treat each person as a loved one and to make their procedure as positive an experience as possible Kate Latus

The challenging part is to deliver an effective, individualised procedure while at the same time pleasing the patient foremost but also the radiographers and technicians who perform the scan, the doctors who analyse and report the images, and the wonderful physicists, office staff and healthcare assistants who make up the nuclear medicine team.

Most of the 6,000 cardiac referrals that come to the Royal Brompton nuclear medicine department are outpatients. They are always much more interesting than the short referral letters can describe.

It is the nurse's job to find out everything about the individual, understand their clinical history and physical condition, and then decide the best method of performing a stress test.

WHAT IS THE MOST COMMON CONDITION?

I mainly see patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.

They come to the Royal Brompton from across the UK because we offer specialist diagnostic services and treatment for a wide range of heart conditions.

WHAT IS THE MOST COMMON PROCEDURE?

Our most common and important diagnostic test is called myocardial perfusion scintigraphy - this involves scanning the blood flow of the heart after 'stress' and 'rest'.

We inject patients with a small amount of imaging agent which enables areas of the heart to show up in the images we take.

We scan them after they exercise (at stress) and when they are relaxed (at rest).

This allows us to identify areas of the heart muscle with normal or inadequate blood supply as well as the areas of heart muscle that are scarred from a heart attack.

From this we can tell if a patient is at risk of a heart attack and whether or not they need an invasive procedure such as angioplasty (a procedure to widen narrowed arteries), or heart surgery.

WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING ABOUT YOUR JOB?

Keeping the paperwork at bay!

WHAT IS YOUR MOST SATISFYING CASE?

I enjoy meeting different patients and being involved in a 'snippet' of their lives.

My aim is always to treat each person as a loved one and to make their procedure as positive an experience as possible.

WHY DID YOU CHOOSE THIS SPECIALTY?

I chose this speciality because I'm fascinated by how the heart works but prefer to be involved in non-surgical patient care - and because nuclear medicine sounded a strange but interesting speciality.

IF YOU HAD YOUR TIME AGAIN WOULD YOU CHANGE YOUR SPECIALTY?

Not at all. I am glad of my initial curiosity.

HOW DO YOU SEE THE ROLE DEVELOPING IN THE FUTURE?

Over the last ten years my job and the role itself has developed steadily into a rewarding career but different from the 'run of the mill' responsibility.

During this time the number of similar jobs across the country has increased as those in existing posts prove that nurses employed as stressors are assets to a nuclear medicine department.

For the future I hope that every nuclear medicine department has a team of nurse stressors to manage and deliver excellent myocardial perfusion stress tests.

In addition to adapting well to the role, nurses are able to enhance its scope by combining new and traditional nursing skills.

Most apprehensive patients welcome the offer of basic and complex information to reduce anxieties about the unknown.

Who better than a nurse to deliver this during their stress test?

CV - Kate Latus

1989: Starting nursing in Hull, East Yorkshire.

1992: Started at the Royal Brompton adult intensive care and cardiothoracic recovery

1996: Moved into nuclear medicine

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