A switchable birdcage coil functioning as a transmitter coil and a separate RF surface coil functioning as the receiver coil are utilize in NMR and MRI apparatus. To prevent the switchable birdcage coil from absorbing energy by coupling to the receiver coil or by absorbing power from the RF field produced by the precessing nuclear spins, one or more of the reactive elements of the birdcage coil are switched from a normal reactive impedance state to a high impedance state. The high impedance state is formed by switchably combining the reactive element with a complementary reactive element thereby forming parallel resonant high impedance circuit that is tuned to resonate at the NMR frequency.