At the beginning of each year, the CNI welcomes back many users, and we are glad to meet new users.  It is also a good time to remind everyone to please help us maintain a safe and productive environment at CNI.

Over the years, our community has worked together helping one another to follow the best practices.  This message is a reminder about important practices we follow to make our facility work well.

1. Shared spaces.  CNI has many shared spaces that you can reserve using the CNI calendar.

• Please be respectful of other users by being aware which areas have been reserved. A reserved space, even the CNI lobby, can be used only by the group that has reserved the space, or if  you are granted explicit permission by the group that reserved the space.
• Please note that the front rest room is shared by all staff and visitors.  If you use it as a changing space for your subject, or for urine collection it is your repsonsibility to leave it pristine for the next person.  Do not use it to store clothes or samples.

2. Managing research participants.  It is important that all research participants have a safe and positive experience while they are the CNI.  Our  good will in the community depends on this.  Research participants includes both the person being scanned and any accompanying family members or supporters.

• Research participants must be chaperoned at times when they are CNI. If accompanying family members cannot be in the control room during a scan, then they must be in a reserved area in CNI (such as the CNI lobby, testing room, or mock scanner room). Please check on these people periodically and treat them courteously.
• While friendly smiles and answering simple questions is appreciated, please communicate instructions only to your own research participants. If a participant from another study groups ask questions, then it is mandatory that a member of that group answer.
• If you find an unaccompanied research participant in a CNI area that you have reserved, please find a researcher from the participant’s group and have them tell the participant where to go.

3. Time management.  We depend on our community to be respectful of the schedule.

• Good practice is to stop your scan before the end of your scheduled time so that your participant can get changed and collect all their personal items in a timely way.
• Make sure that MRI scanner and console is ready for the next group.  This includes
  • ending the exam so that the GE scanning computer is ready for the next users,
  • closing all the data viewers on the GE scanning computer,
  • wiping down with Lysol wipes highly touched surfaces such as the squeeze ball, pulse oximetry attachment, button boxes, etc.,
  • wiping down and putting away all the memory foam pad and neck supports in their storage boxes in the magnet room, cleaning off any tape residue on the squeeze ball with a Lysol wipe,
  • unplugging and putting away button boxes used during your scanning session, and
  • detaching the web camera and/or the IR source from the coil
  • if you used the MRI safe lenses, please clean them and put them back into their correct mini drawers.

4.  Neatness.  This really has a big effect.  The reminders below are examples of mistakes over the last few months.  Please help. Like visiting wilderness areas — please leave no trace of your presence.

• Do not leave used coffee cups, empty water bottles, used earplugs, used socks, and used paper bags, used Lysol wipes, used sanitary covers, used pieces of tape, and other trash in the magnet room, in the control room, in the mock scanner room, in the testing room, and in the rest rooms.
• Also do not leave personal items such as jackets, hair ties, bobby pins.
• Supervise your participants so that they know where used scrubs, used socks, used earplugs and used paper bags go when a scanning session has been completed. This is particularly important whcn scanning adolescents as they tend to leave things in strange places.  But it is always important.
• Enjoying food and drink at CNI is a privilege. We can only continue to allow this if everyone is fastidious about cleaning up any residue. Please wipe down tables and chairs. Vacuum the floor if there are food crumbs with the portable vacuum cleaner located in the control room. Take any leftover food or food stained packages to the garbage containers outside — they will otherwise attract ants and other critters if left inside. If we can’t keep the place clean, we will be forced to ban food and drink.  We don’t want to do that!

5.  Supplies.  You may be surprised to learn that the CNI operates on a very lean budget, and you may be further surprised to learn that a large fraction of it goes to supplies.  To help us keep our rates low, please:

• Do not take pens, paper, gloves, masks, Lysol wipes away for your own use.

Thanks,

The CNI Team