Pete Shackett BA CNMT ARRT(N)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Pete Shackett was born and raised in Newport, New Hampshire. He was the youngest of six children (three brothers and two sisters) with incredibly supportive parents (Bertha and Wilfard). At the age of five, one of his brothers began teaching him how to play drums and at nine, began teaching him how to play guitar. Pete spent his pre-high school and high school years immersed in music and high school band becoming president of the band in his senior year. In 1970, Pete received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Plymouth State College (now Plymouth State University) of the University of New Hampshire in Plymouth, New Hampshire. While studying under Dr. Mary G. Bilheimer, he received a science essay award for a treatise entitled “The Sanitary Significance of Fecal Coliforms in the Environment.” From 1970 to 1996, Pete pursued a professional career in music as a songwriter, singer, recording artist/producer, drummer, acoustic and electric guitarist. Most of his music was performed in and around New England until 1976 when he moved to Florida to continue his music career. He released an album of all original music in 1988 entitled “Grouper Republic®.” The title song Grouper Republic was voted the official city song of Madeira Beach/John’s Pass Village, Florida in 2012. In 1991, having growing issues with his voice and while taking prerequisite classes at St. Petersburg Junior College (now St. Petersburg College), at the suggestion of his lovely wife Carolyn who was an RN in medical at the time, he began volunteering at Bayfront Medical Center in St. Petersburg as a patient transporter and shadowing in the Nuclear Medicine Department. He learned very early how a department was run and how to work with and image patients. His friend Bud, the Chief Technologist of the department at that time, in turn learned how to play guitar. In 1994, he resumed study at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida, majoring in Nuclear Medicine under the direction and guidance of director and author Dr. Max Lombardi (now retired). During his tenure as a student, he wrote a disquisition entitled “99mTc-tetrofosmin: The Efficacy and Significance of a New Myocardial Perfusion Radiopharmaceutical.” The paper and presentation won an award at the Florida Nuclear Medicine Technologist conference in 1996 and was accepted for publication in the Journal of Nuclear Medicine Technology. Pete graduated with high honors in 1996, earning the Award for Academic Excellence in Nuclear Medicine from Hillsborough Community College and elected to Who’s Who Among Students at American Junior Colleges. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins received a copy of the original manuscript (a three-ring binder entitled "The Tech's Book™: Nuclear Medicine Procedures and Quick Reference") for Nuclear Medicine Technology: Procedures and Quick Reference in 1998. The first edition of the book was published in 2000. Pete continued to assimilate information, ideas, and experience in the field of nuclear medicine during his twenty-two years of patient care. His second edition was released in 2008 with an update in 2013. The third edition has been the most gratifying for him and done in hopes of contributing to successful careers to all that may use it. He is forever grateful to the many program directors, students, technologists, equipment techs, physicists, radiopharmacies, physicians, patients and authors that have enriched his education and knowledge of nuclear medicine throughout the years. Pete Shackett presently resides, plays and writes music, and writes about nuclear medicine and other subjects out of the Tampa Bay area in Florida.