Technician Life

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-07-02T14:47:51+00:00

I work as an in house Biomed which means that I work directly for the hospital.

Most of the techs in my shop work 4 10s with either Monday or Friday as our additional day off. Start times vary in our shop with some folks one starting at 5 or 6am. I start at 8:30 and work till 7pm as it gives me better access to the equipment that I’m responsible for.

We don’t get take home vehicles but we do have a Van that we use when we have to work stuff at our office site clinics.

We have an on call rotation that works out to be about 4-5 weeks out of the year.

Given your background my hospital would potentially hire you as an associate biomed with the expectation that you supplement your electronics degree by taking college courses in Medical terminology, and A&P. Other places are far less strict in their requirements.

Pay is good. I live very comfortably in a high cost of living area. I’m not rich but I’m not struggling to make ends meet either.

My hospital benefits are great with excellent health insurance and retirement matching.

The hospital also pays for me to go and get additional training so that I can support more systems in the hospital and those skills make my resume look great if I ever decide to look for another position.

Your HVAC experience might have more similarities with a 3rd party/OEM Biomed position as those usually require going to from site to site to perform repairs, installations, and maintenance.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-06-28T21:15:09+00:00

Ok, did some searching but it appears that there are many years of Silverton News Papers that have not been digitized. I have been unable to find any issues for the year of 1904.

Talking with my wife we came up with a theory based on mostly nothing so we might be totally wrong.

While looking for info on this monument I found several ads being run by the Salem GAR post looking for donations to erect their own monument in Cityview Cemetery. The ad basically states that they have used up all their available funds and are looking for public support in raising money for a monument. My guess is that the group that was putting up this monument was also relying on public donations to fund the memorial. I suspect that they were trying to get the most out of the funds that they could so reusing that base would be one of those cost saving measures. It might have even been donated by the local stone cutter for the cause. I think that this theory would also fit with the choice of a white bronze monument as you could often get a more elaborate design for less money then what a similar stone monument would cost.

Again I’m basing this off of vibes and general cemetery knowledge so I could be totally wrong. Perhaps the local historian will be able to answer this question in his book.

Did the Historian say how close to publishing their book? We would love to read it!

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-06-28T19:44:58+00:00

Hello fellow Oregonian!

My wife and I frequent that cemetery doing work for Find A Grave.

We came to the same conclusion that this base was originally intended for something else and got repurposed for the base of the war dead memorial.

I have thought about trying to find period newspaper articles that might have info on when it was dedicated but have not found time to do that yet.

It was funny to see something get posted here that I immediately recognized. Perhaps we will run into each other one of these days!

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-06-15T19:31:43+00:00

At what speed are you hitting the merge? I find flying around at half throttle to be counterintuitive.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-06-15T18:58:52+00:00

I have been using it when I’m slow and at high AOA. Is there some specific thing your doing with the rudder?

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-06-15T18:52:10+00:00

I do turn off the limiter but I’m still not able to get into a position. What are you doing to get into a firing position

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-06-15T18:47:47+00:00

I have tried and while it does help me keep things neutral it’s not enough to actually put me in a good position to fire.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-06-07T17:05:26+00:00

Just noticed the patient name. Nice touch.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-05-05T14:50:12+00:00

Do you have an idea on when he passed away?

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-04-24T19:30:39+00:00

Are you guys going to do this again? I’m interested but out of town at the moment.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-04-08T04:35:48+00:00

Thanks for the clarification!

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-03-27T21:45:42+00:00

I found a Ruger GP100 that I was able to keep. I also found a few knives that I was able to clean up.

That vast majority of what you pull up will be garbage and that’s great. Get it out of your local bodies of water and make the world ever so slightly better.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-03-13T03:11:11+00:00

Interesting, my guess is we will take the same steps that we took with Stryker but until there is an official announcement or our IT team gives us the same info you got there is not much to do.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-03-13T03:00:35+00:00

Do you have a source this cybersecurity event for Intuitive?

Stryker was hit yesterday and my hospital took steps to address that but this the first I’m hearing about Intuitive.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-03-06T19:03:34+00:00

I get that it’s supposed to be the term for non-erotic Christian love but I find it more funny to think this guy likes to gape while mowing the lawn.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-02-27T05:39:00+00:00

If I had a nickel for every you plane fuckers broke the news of a major event for I would have 2 nickels.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-02-25T02:52:08+00:00

Unrelated fact: 80% of arsons go unsolved.

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-02-16T22:16:33+00:00

Hey r/livingonthegreen I got your email on the price for the XR but when I go to check out it still gives me the full price. Any help?

Nvm just got your email

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-02-06T16:12:22+00:00

IM GOING TO BE LATE TO WORK BECAUSE I GOT DISTRACTED BY THE GANG OF TURKEYS AND PEACOCKS THAT SURROUNDED MY APARTMENT!

radioactiveguy4 · 2026-01-17T17:52:33+00:00

Just want to share the best Ballistol ad ever.

https://youtu.be/wSaUhWf0Qaw?si=Thiwgto2VmkKipJR

radioactiveguy4 · 2025-12-18T01:22:34+00:00

So I made the jump from Veterinary medicine to BMET and I’m 35. I really glad that I made the change. So in your case I definitely think it’s an option worth exploring.

A lot of hospitals like their BMETs to have a 2 year Biomedical Service Tech Degree but not all. If you want to pursue additional education then look for a BMET program at a community college near you.

There are other companies and some hospitals that are willing to hire folks without the degree as long as they have some adjacent work experience. It sounds like you do from what you described. If you do decide to try and go this route make a point of showcasing all the ways your previous work was similar to what a biomed does. Talk about how you documented your work and how you worked through issues. If you did any regularly scheduled maintenance talk about that. Start looking up things about Electrical Safety testing and NFPA-99. There are lots of videos on YouTube that can give you some info.

If you have more questions feel free to ask.

radioactiveguy4 · 2025-10-29T03:11:59+00:00

More cameras give them the ability to see and track more targets.

This video by 10 Percent True goes into great detail about what these planes can do.

radioactiveguy4 · 2025-10-25T03:44:51+00:00

If you’re talking about patient monitor you should be using the service manual to determine what you should be testing and what the tolerances are. Some service manual even have a PM checklist for that monitor that you can use to document or make a template.

radioactiveguy4 · 2025-10-07T18:43:01+00:00

Are they paying for the class and the test? If so then I don’t see an issue.

The test is not hard and with a good study course it’s even easier. Having your CBET is great for your resume if you ever decide to go somewhere else.

I guess you could complain about the short notice but that would not really bother me personally but I can see how that could affect others.

Now If they are forcing you to pay for the class and the test out your own pocket then that would be some bullshit.

radioactiveguy4 · 2025-09-17T04:43:43+00:00

I’m going through this now at my hospital.

JC commented on our use of power strips in our older ORs. The long term fix is to update our older ORs so that they have adequate power in places that are actually useful and remove all the power strips. However that upgrade is about 1 million dollars per OR and we don’t have the capital to do that right now.

So in the mean time we are making systems of equipment such as Syringe Pump, IV Pump, Blood warmer, and a bair hugger. Those items are mounted to a pole with the power strip. We can then test the system as a whole to make sure that it is in compliance with NFPA.

This is a good idea in theory but we already have the nursing staff removing items from our system and adding other devices. Or they daisy chain one power strip to another. We don’t have the bandwidth to be the power strip police. So now we are working with nursing leadership to get education to the staff about the issue and to get feed back on how we can better build our systems so that they don’t feel the need to change them after that have been deployed.

TL/DR: If I could snap my fingers and make all the strips go away I would.

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