(upbeat music) ♪ Hey (upbeat music) - Hi, everyone.

I'm Hana and this is "STEM Works", the show where we explore careers in science, technology, engineering, and math, and what makes them so much fun.

We take you inside businesses and talk to professionals in their fields and explore what they do.

And today we are headed over to visit with our friends at the Renown Childrens Hospital in Reno to see what it is that they do.

(upbeat music) Thomas Jefferson once noted that, "Without health, there is no happiness."

The human body is a wonderful biomechanical machine that allows you to enjoy and experience the beauty of the world around you.

It's fun to run, kick, and climb when all the parts of your legs function as they should.

But what happens when a part of your body doesn't work as it should?

Hips, knees, and ankles all need to come together and function as one to give you the ability to run and jump.

However, there are many different medical conditions such as scoliosis or curvature of the spine where the anatomy of the body does not align properly and can make a simple physical activity such as running difficult or even impossible.

Luckily, there are experts who specialize in treating these conditions.

At the Renown Medical Center, entire teams and departments dedicated to healing come together as one to provide the best care to those in need.

At their Children's Hospital, their pediatric department, assistants, and specialists are hard at work helping doctors diagnose and treat all kinds of conditions from fractures to scoliosis.

They also have all this really cool advanced technology to assist with diagnosis.

In their radiology department, they can take x-ray photos of your bones and in their ophthalmology department, they can zoom all the way into the tiniest parts inside your eyeballs to help with diagnosis and fill out prescriptions for glasses and contact lenses to correct patients' vision.

Helping us discover all the details, today we'll chat with x-ray tech, Amie Stratton, and Dr. Morrison, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, and Robert Bishop, an ophthalmic technician So come on, let's head over for a visit with our friends at the Renown Childrens Hospita to see how they come together as a team to help diagnose and heal their patients to get them back on their feet as quickly as possible.

(upbeat music) All right, let's jump right in.

So tell us, what is your job at Renown Renown Childrens hosptia - I take x-rays for a pediatric orthopedic department, so doctors who specialize in orthopedics for kids.

I like to call myself a photographer but it's more of a bone photographer.

- We see all types of problems from simple bumps and bruises to fractures to sports injuries or a congenital anomaly such as a hip dysplasia or other types of spine injuries like scoliosis.

- We bring kids and adults back and we do ophthalmic testing on their eyes prior to the doctor seeing them so the doctor can diagnose better.

- We take x-rays of broken bones, hips, feet, legs, scoliosis.

We're checking to see if you're having any issues walking or standing to see what might be going on and what might be causing those issues.

- We check their glasses.

We check the refractive error, which is why they need glasses, the shape of the eye.

We take photographs of the back of the eye, the retina.

We also do diagnostic testing for the optic nerve and the macula, which is part of the retina.

Those are important measurements 'cause some people have long eyes.

Some people have short eyes.

Some people have astigmatism, so all that matters.

- Can you also tell us why your job is important?

- We don't have x-ray vision, so you need people like me and the equipment that we have so the doctors can do their job, make you better.

- When someone gives you their child, they expect their child back better, not as good as but better than what they gave 'em to you as.

It's usually been injury or an abnormality that they're concerned with.

It's about figuring out who can benefit from surgery and then performing the correct surgery for that patient.

- We treat just about any type of eye disease.

Ophthalmology is a general term for a lot of different specialties, including the retina, including glasses, including plastic surgery, cataract surgery.

There's a lot of things to do.

- Certain images we have to obtain when x-raying because each view is something different, so a view of the wrist could be two to three views.

You cannot see a fracture on one view but the minute I turn it to the side, which is called a lateral view, you can all of a sudden see the fracture and things have to be positioned a certain way so the images are diagnostic for the doctors.

- So what excites you the most about your job?

- It's always something different.

It's so interesting.

You know, every day is a new challenge, but a fun challenge.

- I don't think it's about a single thing.

I think it's just the amount of kids that we're able to make an impact on.

- That's part of the reason I love this job, that I'm part of this team.

We get to help fix kids who have a hard time walking so they can run fast and go and play on the playground and it's awesome to see that progression.

- [Dr. Morrison] To see the recovery and to see the process through is so rewarding.

Whether it's getting a kid to walk flat-footed again or simply fixing a broken bone, makes such a big difference in child's lives.

- It's exciting to me when patients end up leaving and they're seeing better or they know what's going on with their eyes.

So for me it's kind of a fuzzy good-feeling thing that I get.

That's the most exciting thing.

- Any cool tech that you use here?

- We have a machine called an Ocular Coherence Tomography or OCT. We shine a light through the pupil and it actually gives us a diagnosis on the retina.

- We have saws.

We have chisels.

We have things that look like they came right from the hardware store.

Obviously they're medical-grade and they're used specifically for bones and joints.

- The fun thing about radiology is technology's always changing.

You're always learning.

You get to play with machines.

So when the machine's moving around or when I'm using my equipment to move it around, I always call it my robot and kids love it when we're done and they can come over to my computer screen and take a look at it.

You get to see your bones.

- Okay, and what about skills?

What are some of the most important skills in your job?

- The first skill is to have a good attitude, knowing how equipment works, knowing the general structures of the eye and how the eye works.

- Orthopedic surgery is really a lot of mechanics and so knowing our anatomy and how things work is the background of orthopedics.

In scoliosis when we have bracing, bracing is meant to allow that spine to grow straight.

Knowing the mechanics and how the spine will become straightened is really helpful in order to know how to do the procedure and then put those skills to use.

- A lot of times it's not textbook so we have to think outside the box, for example, for an elbow x-ray requiring patients to go like this for a picture.

A lot of people, when your elbow hurts, you can't flatten it.

It hurts.

So I have to try to problem-solve and think, okay, we can't do it this way, so how about we bring your arm out like this and we get the picture this way?

- I think the biggest thing is having a good group of people to work with.

A lot of collaboration between anesthesiologists, pharmacies, doctors' offices, collaboration has to do with how you treat patients.

It also has to do with asking for help when you need it.

- There's a lot of collaboration.

There's certain images we do for, say, a spine surgery, so there's a lot of times our doctors are in here actually moving the patient, seeing what they're capable of to get them ready for surgery.

- So not only is it me doing my part of my job but it's to motivate people and to communicate with people in order to get everyone on the same page to understand what our goals are as a team in order to get that patient back to their family, and kind of rallying the troops in order to have everyone on the same page is really important.

Being part of the team, you're relying on other people and other people are relying on you.

- Do you have any other advice for us?

- I would say check out a lot of different things.

See what other people are doing and then see what you might like.

See if you like to work with your hands.

- Take all the opportunities and experiences in life and pile 'em up together and that's what's gonna make you who you are.

- Without going and actually seeing it for yourself and what the job actually entails, you might not know if that's gonna be the right fit for you.

Shadow in a different department or see a different position and say, "Oh hey, that's really cool."

- [Dr. Morrison] Whether it be physical therapy, nursing, surgical technician, there's lots of places that you can be a part of that team.

- We have girls that schedule the surgeries, RNs who help make sure all the testing is done.

We have people at the front desk that check you in.

You can be an MRI tech.

You can go into ultrasound.

You can go into CT. - If you find something you love, sometimes it's by accident.

So the more times you're out there, the more opportunities you have to figure out what's yours.

- That is so cool.

Thanks to Amie, Robert, and Dr. Morrison, we discovered all about what they do at Renown Childrens Hospital and how much skill, cooperation and knowledge goes into caring for their patients.

And of course getting to see all that advanced tech was way too cool.

I hope you had as much fun as I did finding out about these awesome careers at Renown Childrens Hospital.

That's about all the time we have.

But I wanna thank you all for joining us for this episode of “PBS Reno STEM Works".

You can find out more informatio about Renown Medical Center and the Renown Childrens Hospit at their website Renown.org For more information on these careers and others, visit pbsreno.org/stemworks.

And as always, don't forget to get out there and discover what it is that gets you going and on the right path to your STEM future.

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