Louise Deshon
Lecturer, Medical Imaging
Louise Deshon has undergone an interesting professional career that has come full circle. She is a lecturer in Medical Imaging Science in the same school in which she studied. She also works privately within the profession, a role she enjoys, often working in the same clinics as the Curtin students undertaking their practicums - the same students she teaches.
When Louise was growing up, she had to wear a brace for three of her teenage years and spent a significant amount of time at Royal Perth Hospital Shenton Park campus, getting MRIs and CT scans. The regular exposure to the radiography centre made all the processes and technology quite familiar. This familiarity, in part, led her to enrolling in the Radiography course at Curtin in 1998, and her Honours straight after graduation.
After a year-long working holiday in Oxford, she returned home to Perth, to her fiancée and to a job at Curtin with Medical Imaging Science. She also completed a postgraduate qualification in Sonography (the study of ultrasound). Curtin will run its first Masters in Sonography commencing 2008 and Louise will be teaching on the program.
She says that there is a certain type of person that does well in this area. “You have to work closely with people, in their personal space, you have to communicate quickly and clearly and reassure them. It is not a long, ongoing relationship, so you need to gain their trust very quickly.” She thinks that now, coming back as a teacher, she is more aware of the way people communicate and interact with others. She can see the people who will do well from a very early stage. “You can pick ‘em. The way they relate to other people, being open and at ease with a variety of people they don’t know.”
She sometimes experiences those who are unaware of the depth of the science, “don’t you just push a button?” is not an uncommon question. But it is so much more than that: the all-important communication, anatomy, the 3D nature of the body and the injury, the patient’s medical background, technical skills and being able to obtain clear images, knowing the underlying physics of the science and understanding the way energy reacts with the body,.
“You see all ages and all types of accidents.” One in particular stood out in her mind. She was in a Perth hospital, dealing with two emergency cases - a drunk driver and the victim he had hit . Both had very serious injuries and, “We just to had to treat them the same, but it was a bit strange. Some staff felt very uncomfortable helping the drunk driver.”
She is extremely satisfied with her lot. She works professionally in a rewarding job, and passes her knowledge on to students who will go on to enjoy experiences like hers. Certainly, Louise’s life seems to have come full circle in a nice kind of way.
