Member Spotlight: Caron Murray

I had attended an educational meeting by the Ontario Association of Medical Radiation Technologists, and we had a presentation on the first MR in Toronto at the old Princess Margaret Hospital. This piqued my interest, and I love learning new things, so MR seemed like an expansion of what I needed to learn. I had been a charge technologist in CT in the 1990’s while MR was just coming into being. Candy Kaut had come to Toronto and run a week-long MR course that I attended for those of us who were keen to break into the modality. That did it for me, and I was hooked; I didn’t move to MR at the time but began to explore more educational opportunities to discover MR. I enrolled in a programme which was a combination of a one-year onsite didactic training followed by a three-month clinical training. CT was becoming a bit boring for me—I didn’t feel challenged anymore—but it was hard to move from a charge position to drop down again to a regular technologist position, but that’s what I did. After my programme ended, I left my charge CT position and was hired as an MR technologist working the midnight shift.

I love everything about MR! I learn something new every day about MR: whether it’s something in regard to how to scan a specific body part, or how a pulse sequence actually works, or how an artefact occurs and how to mitigate it. I often tell my clients that I thought I knew MR, but then I transitioned to working at an MR research facility and found I knew very little! However, what I found was that while I didn’t know as much MR physics as the people with whom I was working, I knew how to work with patients/volunteers and perform MR studies with them. The same thing happened again when I left my research position to join GE HealthCare: I have learned so much from the people with whom I work, and GE HealthCare has helped me become better at what I do to help others. I have had (and still have) many wonderful opportunities throughout my career from both the people I’ve worked with and the people I’ve worked for.

I have been a member of the ISMRT since 2002. When I started working in MR Research at the Sunnybrook Research Institute in Toronto, it was exciting working with different researchers as they prepared for upcoming ISMRM meetings. I have always enjoyed any type of learning, and there was so much to learn in MRI. I was given the opportunity to work on my own individual abstract submissions, and if successful, I also would have the ability to attend the annual meeting. This was right up my alley! A stretch opportunity, I love a challenge: learning something new, putting something into practice and hoping for good results, experiencing what my co-workers were going through with their submissions (lots of panic, frustration, editing, and re-writing), and having the opportunity to attend the annual ISMRM meeting. Working in research was great for me, and I enjoyed working with and learning so much from all our senior scientists and their divergent groups. Through their mentoring, they allowed me to become more involved with the SMRT/ISMRM. The SMRT was the society of like-minded people where I was very glad to have the opportunity to become a member.

I enjoy working on committees because it enhances my skills and knowledge outside of what I do on my job on a daily basis. It’s wonderful to hear different points of view from colleagues around the world within our MR community, and it allows me to enhance my skills in communication, leadership experience, event planning, project management and execution, and much more. I enjoy the sense of accomplishment when things fall into place successfully!

I try to participate in as many study groups as I can, but with limited free time available, I am currently enjoying the cardiac MR, interventional MR, MR of Cancer, MR in radiation therapy groups. I’m focusing on the more clinically related groups in which I am interested.

• Past memberships: Policy Board; 2008 Annual Program Committee (co-chair); Education Committee; Regional Committee member and Chair, ISMRM Safety Committee member, Executive Member of the Executive Committee, Abstracts Committee
• Current member: 2023 Annual Program Committee member

I do travel quite a bit for my job, and I cover the entire country, so I am well acquainted with airports and airplanes across Canada. I love visiting different clinical and research MR sites, and while they are all different in many ways, they are also very similarly. I think that it takes a specific type of person to become a healthcare worker (either clinical or research), and I can see how much we are all the same. I mostly will fly out on a Monday and work on site supporting patients Tuesday to Friday and then fly home Friday afternoon. Since I love MR and working with patients, I work weekends at several different hospitals doing clinical MR scanning. Not only does this keep me in touch with the day-to-day activities of a clinical MR department, it gives me the opportunity to save for my holidays! I do love to travel, and my big holiday this year will be a month in New Zealand toward the end of the year. I can’t wait! I get a bit antsy if I’m not doing something, so I like to keep myself busy. If I’m not travelling or working in my home office, the day may be filled with MS Teams calls and providing remote customer image reviews and training. I love the annual meetings and the educational content available. The opportunities for networking, collaborating, sharing ideas, new technologies and experiences, as well as interacting with fellow MR enthusiasts, are invaluable.

I love animals, in particular dogs, and now I only have one dog named Hamish. He is a 17-year-old West Highland White Terrier who is almost blind and completely deaf but has us all wrapped very tightly around his paw and still enjoys his three walks a day. I am a huge reader and will always have several books on the go at all times. During the winter, I knit or hand quilt and enjoy any type of needlework activities. Exercise or dance classes such as Zumba, salsa, tap or hip hop are fun and a good way to pass the winter when getting outside is sometimes an issue. I think that I just love being part of a group and being around other people.