SDSU Imaging Center

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Rules and Guidelines

We strive to maintain a safe, friendly, and stable environment providing flexible access to high quality MRI facilities while keeping rules and regulations to a bare necessary minimum. The basic set of guidelines all users are expected to know and follow are:

1. Any person who will enter the magnet room must first attend a one-session SDSU Imaging Center Safety Training course offered every month. In preparation for this training, they should memorize the contents of MRI Magnet Safety (2 pages).

2. Only qualified Scanner Operators are allowed to run the scanner. Normal operating hours are Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm. During these hours, normal, healthy adult participants can be scanned by a single qualified Operator (though we encourage there to be two Operators present, especially early in a study). Outside these hours, or whenever children (16 and under), patients, or other special populations are scanned, there must always be at least one additional Safety Trained helper present.

3. No participants can be scanned without prior, written voluntary informed consent. Phantom scanning does not require ethical approval.

4. All participants must have filled out a 1-page MRI Participant Screening Form (1 page) before entering the scanner environment (control room and magnet room). These must be filed in the box labeled Form1 in the control room.

5. When scanning a participant or a phantom, the control room logbook must be filled in (just a few entries on one line). This is where their Patient ID (YYMMDDHHII, entered in "Patient -> Register..." panel) is found. It is important that we have this minimal record of all scanning done.

6. When a participant is in the scanner, the Scanner Operator can only leave the control room if another qualified Scanner Operator agrees to take over and replace them in the control room.

7. Always return equipment to its original location and state. This includes making sure all the equipment (projectors, screens, headphones, cushions, coilds) is completely ready to be used by the next group. There are many labels on equipment and shelves to help.

8. Scanner bookings need to be cancelled 48 hours or more before the booked time, otherwise a percentage of the booked scanner hours will be charged for the cancelled time slot. This is to encourage cancelling booked hours far enough in advance so that other groups can potentially use them.

9. It is best to leave 30 min "open" time between bookings by different research groups to reduce set-up/tear-down friction between groups.

10. All operators should be familiar with the SDSU Imaging Center's Incidental Findings Policy.

11. All users need to be subscribed to our email list as this is our main way of communicating with the community [details TBA].

The complete set of guidelines is available in our Manual.