“What we have, both in people and equipment, no other MRI provider around comes close to; no one reaches the standard of care or the standard of delivery we have here,” says Kathy Merrithew, technical supervisor for FirstMRI. An independent provider located at the EMMC State Street campus in Bangor, FirstMRI has more experience with magnetic resonance imaging technology than any other MRI service in the state.
And when it comes to health care, experience means everything. Established in 1985 when most of the country hadn’t even heard of the technology, FirstMRI was the first center north of Boston and the first to offer high-definition imaging.
Magnetic resonance imaging, Medical Director Dr. George Wright says, results in the ability to “view neuro anatomy that had never been possible except on the autopsy table. We are able to see small structures, pathways in the brain, types of disease pathology which were previously invisible to us.”
With three systems—or “magnets,” as they are called—available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, patients choose to come here from Calais or Caribou, Waterville, even Canada, because the staff can and will accommodate their needs. Immediate diagnosis and treatment vs. a two-week wait, or in Canada, an eight-month wait, can make all the difference.
Choice is always part of the equation: No matter the circumstances, all patients can choose where to have their MRI done. Most facilities in the state have only one magnet; a few have two. Only FirstMRI has three—two being high-definition magnets with state-of-the-art software that allows a detail of imaging that enables physicians to make critical diagnoses not possible with less sophisticated equipment.
There’s nothing an MRI can’t scan, although Wright is careful to point out that it is not always the first line of diagnostic study. It is not first for “abdomens or chests” or breasts, either, but according to Merrithew and technologist Keith Potter, it is becoming more widely utilized. “People with extremely dense breasts,” explains Potter, “it’s hard to do mammograms or see things on ultrasound. With cystic breasts, we can see past that. There’s that extra measure—more information, more specificity, more sensitivity.”
Much depends on the experience of technologists like Potter, knowing what scans to perform, how to acquire the images and operate the machinery, as well as how to make an MRI the best possible experience for the patient.
“Yes, we know what normal tissues should look like,” says Wright, “what certain types of abnormal pathologies look like and we know what types of sequences will clarify what we’re seeing. But we also know that we need to provide a level of personal attention.”
“People often come to us fearful,” adds Merrithew. “We owe them our best in all ways. We can make this work for them. We do it all the time.”
Claustrophobia is often cited as a problem for some patients, but the short-bore systems, along with patience and a bag of tricks—from a simple cloth over the eyes, to music, to medication, if necessary—ease the procedure.
“All MRIs are not the same; all providers are not the same,” says Merrithew. “You need to choose a provider who can give you what you need.”
Never settle for less than, according to Merrithew, “a center with ACR accreditation, top-notch equipment, a staff of technologists that are registered by the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists in MRI, and physicians who have the credentials to take on this imaging modality.”
Throw in technologists who have been in the MRI trenches for over 20 years and still find the work exciting, a director who remembers the first time he saw a scan and knew immediately that this “could make a difference in terms of the types of questions we would be able to answer,” and a supervisor who cares that a 76-year-old woman and her husband get home before dark, and you really have something. You have FirstMRI.