UC Blue Ash student's paper earns rare placement in top radiologic technology journal

UC Blue Ash student Abbey Christman is not your average college junior. She’s also a radiologic technologist working at Tri-Health Bethesda North and just had an article published in Radiologic Technology, the official journal of the American Society of Radiologic Technologists. It was the first paper Christman wrote as a student in the Radiologic Technology program.
 
Christman wrote such an effective and comprehensive paper about communicating with elderly patients that her professors thought it was worthy of a submission to the journal. They were all a bit surprised when it was selected for publication in the May/June issue.
 
“Although the Radiologic Technology editor welcomes manuscripts from students, very few students take the time to follow through with the rigor of editing their manuscript and converting it to the American Medical Association format—it’s a lot of work,” says Julie Gill, associate professor and chair of the Allied Health Department at UC Blue Ash. “This is only the second year we’ve ever had one of our students get published.”
 
The article deals with preserving patient dignity, understanding communication disabilities and creating a positive environment for communication.
 
“I’ve spent a lot of time in hospitals around the elderly, and you often hear hospital workers speaking to them as if they are babies,” Christman says. “I was pulling information also from a previous psychology course I took on adulthood aging; I wanted to present an alternative method.”
 
Now that Christman has one publication under her belt, she and Gill hope to collaborate on additional articles.
 
“She’s got the writing bug, and as a professional educator, I want to push her to focus on that and encourage her to expand on it," Gill says.
 
To view the article, click here.