My Audiologist was made aware that I am an MRI Technologist, and the most trouble my mild hearing loss gives me is at work. (I just make my kids speak louder lol).
When I scan anyone, I ask and visually check their ear canals and out go any hearing aids.
My Audi didn’t know what to tell me, said she checked with Oticon (didn’t sound like they knew), and basically said no rechargeable battery HAs, but the other ones should be fine… Probably. And, if not, they were waranteed. Well, the warranty has a $500 replacement charge, so I don’t feel terribly brave with this new experiment now. I already maxed out 3 years of health insurance benefits and paid $300 out of pocket.
I have Oticon miniRite.
She said don’t wear them in the exam room while actively scanning. For background info, the magnet and therefore magnetic field is ALWAYS ON (only off during machine initial installation, deinstallation, or a catastrophic event). She thought wearing them during my normal job functions would be acceptable.
I wore them in the scan room a couple of times and it was horrible! I work primarily on a 3 Tesla scanner and even in the 1.5T rooms my HAs are ferrous (so if I get too close to the machine they twist in my ears are start to pull out–which creates a safety hazard for my patients as they could potentially be pulled out of my ears at an extremely high rate of speed).
I am in and out of the scan room nearly 50 times a day, often with barely a moment’s notice (i.e. claustrophobic patients and critically ill or injured patients).
I have Google searched, and checked for Technologist resources and come up empty.
Does anyone have any resources? When I asked my Audi I was completely underwhelmed. She basically said it was up to me whether I wore them or not . Obviously, this is outside of her scope of knowledge, but if SHE doesn’t know, who would?