How To Become a Radiologic Technologist: Education, Training, and Growth Opportunities

Welcome to the A Couple of Rad Techs Podcast! In this episode, your host, Chaundria Singleton, delves into the world of radiologic technology and shares insights on how to become a radiologic technologist. From her personal journey of transitioning from a truck driver to a career in radiology, Singleton imparts valuable advice for aspiring professionals. She discusses essential clinical training, equipment, and procedures, and highlights the importance of certifications and licensing in this field. Join us as we explore the educational pathways, specialized skills, and diverse career opportunities available in the world of radiologic technology. Whether you're considering a career change or looking to enter this dynamic field, this episode is filled with valuable information and inspiring anecdotes from a seasoned radiologic technologist. So, grab your headphones and get ready for an informative and engaging episode!

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MagicMind, testimonial, radiology, clinical training, radiography, equipment, procedures, MRI, radiologic technologist, certifications, licenses, ARRT, continuing education, specializations, salaries, patient care, radiation protection, clinical education, mental sharpness, energy levels, A Couple of Rad Techs, educational pathways, prerequisites, coursework, pediatrics, trauma cases, hands-on training, experience, radiology students, certifications, licensure
is becoming a radiology technician worth it? which radiology tech gets paid the most? is radiology a difficult major?what is the difference between a rad tech and an xray tech?professional organizations for radiologic technologist

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to a couple of rad techs podcast, where we bring you an inside look at the world of radiology from the unique perspective of a married couple of radiologic technologists together. We have over 30 years of experience in the field and are here to demystify the science of medical imaging. Radiology is the unsung hero of the medical field, providing doctors with crucial images and information that help diagnose and treat illnesses. Join us as we explore the latest techniques, technologies, and innovations in radiology and discover the vital role we play in the healthcare industry. So come along for the ride as we share our passion for radiology as a married couple.

Chaundria: 0:38

Welcome everyone to an episode of a Couple Of Rad Techs Podcast. I am your host, Chaundria, and I am a Radiologic Technologist, MRI Technologist and CT Technologist who can also do screening mammographies. And today we have an exciting topic for you. We're going to jump right into the journey of becoming a Radiologic Technologist, because I have gotten that question over and over in my DMS on social media. I think it's about time that I give you guys what you want to hear. But first I want to thank my sponsor Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode. I'm going to give you some details on how you can get your own Magic Mind with my discount. Stay tuned and thank you again, Magic Mind for sponsoring this episode. This episode is whether you're a prospective student, a healthcare enthusiast, or just curious about what it takes to become a Radiologic Technologist. You want to stay tuned. First of all, what is a Radiologic Technologist? We have to understand what it is before we ever want to get into doing something where we're going to invest the type of time that it takes to become this type of medical professional. We are highly skilled in operating imaging equipment, ensuring accurate images and working closely with patients and other health care teams. We are the third largest medical profession in the nations and we play a crucial role in capturing medical images like x rays, CT scans. MRIs and radiation therapy, mammography, ultrasound, PET scan, interventional, the list goes on and on and on. That is all the things that we do. And even more, we're in education, we're in medical sales, informatics. All of those things. Stay tuned. I'm gonna talk more and more about this amazing field. As you can see, we are vitally important to the healthcare field. Now, in order to get in, many people wonder, well, do I just take a certification? Do I have to go to school? If so, how long is the school? Before we go any further. If you like what you've heard so far, be sure to hit that subscribe button for me right there on your YouTube, on your Instagram, on your LinkedIn, wherever you're at, go ahead and subscribe, if you have gotten value and maybe you didn't know what a Radiologic Technologist was, well, we're going to keep going here. First off, we're going to talk about the educational pathways. You have number one, the formal radiography education. You need to complete a radiography program that is accredited by the joint review committee on education in Radiologic Technologists, better known as J. R. C. E. R. T. These programs award an associate's or a bachelor's degree and take two to four years to complete. They provide both classroom education and supervised clinical experience in radiography. Very important that your program has this certification, you guys, if you didn't hear anything else, be sure, because there are some programs out there that are looking for"technicians". That's a dead giveaway, just in my opinion. Number two, coursework. Typical courses include Radiation Physics, Biology. Imaging Procedures, Patient Care, Anatomy, Pathology, Equipment Operation, Radiation Protection, and Medical Ethics. Programs also include at least 1, 200 hours of hands on rotations in a radiology department. And let me tell you, You cannot skate through this portion. You must pass all of this and it's all done at the same time. A lot of hands on and a lot of classroom. Third, licensing and certification. After you graduate from an accredited program, you must get licensed or certified in most states to work as a radiologic technologist. Certification exams are offered by the A R R T, and that stands for American Registry of Radiologic Technologist. Common credentials include Registered Technologist, or RT. That is important. So if any of you guys out there have gotten an x ray or any kind of radiology exam, be sure to ask the technologist performing the scan, are they an RT? If you cannot remember registered technologist. Ask them, you'll be pleasantly surprised in some states that some are not. Number four, continuing education. Most states require licensed Radiology Techs to complete 24 hours of continuing education. Every two years to keep up their skills, knowledge, and credentials, they have to stay current. So this is not a get certified one time and you are in no, it is regular credentialing. And we're going to talk about what happens if you let those credentials lapse. I just got a DM from a technologist that did. They were worried they may have to go back to school all over again, which is a possibility. I'll talk more about it. So be sure to stay tuned because we're going to get into that. Subjects often covered include imaging advances, patient care, quality assurance, and equipment. You hear a lot about equipment. We do press buttons and we do more than that. So you have to understand how the equipment works and how to operate it. Now, we're going to discuss the typical coursework and prerequisites, because I get a lot of questions about what prerequisites should I get done while I'm in high school or after high school? What should I do to really give myself a boost to get picked for the program? Typical prerequisites and coursework required for the radiologic technology programs are, and these are just the prerequisites. You have to graduate high school, or at least. The equivalent. Then you have to have completed coursework in Anatomy, Physiology, Mathematics, Biology, and Physics. Minimum high school or college GPA 2. 5 or higher. If you really want to get up there in the high ranks on that wait list or into the program top tier, you want to probably go for a 3. 0 or higher. Observation hours completed in a radiology department, a prerequisite. When I started over 21 years ago, I had to go through a hospital that would allow me to just kind of observe. That's so important because sometimes people get into professions and they have no idea what is required of them. When I was in school. One person did not want to abide by this requirement. They took up a space from someone and it was too late by that time to find an alternate person. So there was a seat left over that could have been given to someone who truly could have used it. That is health and immunization clearance. There are certain immunizations to work in healthcare that you have to have. Very few facilities will let you come in not immunized at all, especially on certain things. You probably don't want to work in healthcare because we have needle sticks, even in radiology, you can get stuck with dirty needles. And we see the same population everyone else sees, and you could give something to a patient. So your health records have to be cleared. Immunization records have to be cleared. Everyone has to abide by those. Again, there are certain things I know like the flu, you can get. A religious exemption. I think you can still get an allergy exemption, but you know, some things they just took the allergic things out. Like you got to jump through hoops to get clearance in to bypass things, especially when it comes to those immunizations. So that is a prerequisite. All five of those things I mentioned. Now we're going to get into the core courses. Radiation Physics. Yeah. I said it. This is not your physics. You learned in high school, you guys radiation physics that covers fundamentals of radiation production and safety. That is no joke. The second one of a core course, you can't get past these core courses, Radiation Biology, effects of radiation on human cells and body. I'm gonna tell you that was a lot. 3rd, radiographic procedures, proper positioning and techniques for x ray exams. This is like the bread and butter. You have to pass these courses. You have to prove competent on these courses. You can not do radiology without these things. I mean, if you can't position a patient, I don't care if you're doing MRI, radiation therapy. All of our modalities, you got to know how to position. You just can't lay somebody on there and ask them to position themselves. It just doesn't work like that. You have to learn these things in school. For image production and evaluation, understanding image equipment standards. We have to do QA on a lot of things. I think of mammography. That is such a heavy quality assurance. Like there's an example of a lady serving time in prison because she did not follow the QA guidelines and people actually lost their lives because of something in our field that was not followed. We've got to understand how to do QA not just mammo, we have to do QA and CT, MR, all the machines have to be QA'd and we have to know when they're not putting out optimal imaging quality and be able to reach out to an engineer and get that corrected. If we see a problem and we continue using the machine, we're liable. Number five, patient care. That's even more important. I mean, I have taught before for seven years, and I'm gonna tell you how many people, just I don't care about patients. I'm not gonna work with patients, or I don't really have to deal with the patients. They just will just ignore patient care. I think that should be number one, patient care, communication with your patients. It will help your exams go a lot easier. It will make for a better experiences for the patient. You just need patient care. Everyone needs to be top, top on their patient care. Safety wise, it's great. Rights, assessments, monitoring. If you don't monitor your patients, even as assess them, really bad things can happen in radiology. Because I think like some exams, we put the patient in the machine and they're there for maybe 30 minutes or an hour. If you're not performing patient care during this time, many of our patients are sedated for MRIs. If you are not watching the monitors, making sure the heart rate is right, making sure the respiration is right and the respiration is still going. I mean, they're even CAT scan, we're injecting contrast. You must implore patient care. So the patient does not have an extravasation where the contrast is going into the skin. Like you wouldn't believe how many times people lack on patient care. Number six, radiation protection, minimizing radiation exposure to patients, techs, and others. I thought this was great because. We think about patients. Yes. Number one, we need to protect our patients from radiation exposure. Some people come on a regular basis. And even if they're not, some people are younger, they need to be protected from overexposure. We need to be employing the correct amount of radiation and the correct collimation, the correct everything in order to be able to protect our patients, also our technologists, you have situations where technologists. We'll start scanning when another tech is in the room instead of saying, Hey, I'm about to start scanning or the scan is the countdown of 20 seconds. All of those things are part of radiation protection. Number seven, clinical education. You must get at least 1200 hours, 1200 hours of supervised rotation in a radiology setting supervised 1200 in a radiology setting. You just got to have it. I mean, it is the bare minimum. Now, most people get more than that. And that is very important. Many schools also require CPR certification. I know it was required 21 years ago when I started in radiologic technology school, you also have to have a criminal background check. That is important because you're dealing with. very personal information of people. You are also in close quarters with people who are vulnerable. So they have to make sure your background criminally comes through. And also there are certain exams that are not going to be paid for by Medicare, because if you have certain criminal charges, you don't qualify for Medicaid or any federal health care, so the government would not pay for a technologist who actually is doing those exams and they still have that on a record. All of those things are going to be checked when you go to school for any health care. But we're talking about radiologic technology here. Drug screening tests. You most likely will be tested for drugs. You could be tested during the program before the entrance of the program. Just like at work. Because you are dealing with drugs, we have access to drugs. We really do. Even though we may not give drugs to patients, we have access to them and you have to also physically meet the requirements to do the program. If you can't stand for long periods of time, if you can't walk long periods of times, if you can't even lift a certain amount of weight, this is probably not the profession for you, even if you say, well, once I graduate, I don't plan on doing the physical part of it. Our job is physical, maybe not as physical as others, but the likelihood of you never having to do anything that requires physical exertion and not being able to meet the physical requirements of the job is zero. And you probably will never get to a facility to where they let you just sit down and they do all the lifting and picking up and moving, not going to happen, at all. Just a tip, those are some great things to know about the course. Now that you know what it takes to reach the education part and talking about those seven core classes, does it just make you like, oh my goodness, that's a lot for me to take. Well, I'm going to talk about Magic Mind, our sponsor today. I have personally been using Magic Mind and I love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. I feel like as you're embarking on an education program, caffeine is not going to take you there to where, where you need to focus the mind, where you really need to have all of your brain cells really all focused and your synapses just snapping on every level. I've been trying a new way to keep my energy levels steady throughout the day. I don't know if you're like me at midday, I need to take a nap. I just have to take a nap. I'm like running to eat really quick. And then I'm laying down in my car. It just was not cutting it after a while. So maybe it's coffee for you. You can actually drink this along with your coffee, but I'm going to tell you how I do it. I just drink it right out of here. I put it in a fridge, take it out every morning, drink it down. Thankfully, I found this little shot. It helps me get my energy back and fully focused. I take it because it's easy to use. It tastes great and it helped me a lot. Don't let the green color fool you. The taste is really good. I'm serious. Even my husband, the other rad tech approves, and he doesn't drink anything green at all. I cannot get 22 years of marriage. He's not drinking it. He he's on to me now, he even asked me he was like, can I get some of your Magic Mind? I'm like, no, buddy, you got to order your own and I'll tell you how you can order your own too. But first let me tell you, I have noticed that my mental sharpness is faster and it's consistent all day. I'm way more creative and my mood is so upbeat even in these winter months where it gets dark early. So what is in this little green drink that tastes so good? Six things I'll tell you about. It's a few more that kind of give it a little sweetness. All healthy. Number one, matcha. Everybody loves matcha. Ashwagandha is number two. Lion's Mane Mushrooms is number three. Cordyceps Mushrooms is number four. Now these other five it's for the memory and good for stress. So you don't have to know how to pronounce the ingredients, but you guys, I'm telling you, I drank two bottles and saw a difference. It's probably going to taste like green drink. I was pleasantly surprised. I drank two bottles when it came in, I saw a difference within those two days. Then my husband decided he'd give it a try. And within a few days, he was asking for more. I gave my mom two, she waited and she hadn't tried it yet. And I had to tell her, look, I'm going to get my bottles back. If you don't try these. So she went on and tried them and she ordered her own after that. Next I told the manager at a radiology facility that was struggling with having energy as well. Hot flashes, all kinds of other stuff. And she and her husband now love drinking Magic Mind every morning. I recommend you get the January deal. Let me tell you what it is. It's 56 percent off of a subscription of MagicMind. But if you want to try it out first, you can get 20 percent off a single order. That's amazing. You must use my code RadTechs20. But get this, it gets even better. Only this January Magic Mind wants to help you gear up to crush your 2024 fully focused. You get one month for free when you're subscribing for three months at Magicmind. com slash J A N Rad Techs and use my code Rad Techs 20 it's an extra 20 percent off, which gives you a 75 percent off this last until the end of January. So hurry up before it goes away. Now let's get into the clinical training. I love the clinical training part, being able to work with the patients. You get to rotate through essential and significant components in the radiologic technology training. And this is for several reasons. First, you get to bridge the theory and practice. Hands on experience allows students to be able to apply the knowledge from textbooks and lectures to real patients and situations. That is so important. Working under licensed Radiologic Technologists helps students and allows students to connect imaging science concepts to practices in an actual healthcare setting. I've heard other healthcare professionals who only do didactic or classroom work, textbooks, writing care plans. And when they get into the hospital, that's when they finally get the practice on patients. That's why I love radiology. Number two, skill development. Clinical rotations provide the invaluable repetition and coaching needed to master positioning patients using radiography equipment properly. Critiquing images for quality and more specialized modalities. Faculty and preceptors supervise and provide feedback to help students hone in those technical skills. And I'm going to tell you guys, they are not just going, okay, pass, pass, pass. No, the Technologists really want you to be able to see every situation, be able to work it out on your own, but they are there to help you. And as a student, I encourage you take it all in, learn the different ways that each Technologist is going to teach you. I'm telling you, it is humongous when you actually get into the field, you'll go back and say, I remember how so and so did this. You finally see something and you're like, oh my goodness, what he or she taught me is going to actually work. Number three, patient care abilities. During clinical training, students learn how to interact with sick and injured patients, develop patient assessment abilities. Practice ethical protocols, ensure safety and comfort needs, communicate effectively, and demonstrate compassion. This is going to help them become more patient focused Radiologic Technologists. And I'm going to tell you, nothing is better than a patient focused Radiologic Technologist. Put yourself in a situation, I have been a patient before in the radiologic technology patient, and I'm going to tell you, I have had good and bad experiences where people forget the patient focused part of their job. And it can be easy to do, but we've got to pull back and realize that one day we are going to be patients as well. We're not always going to be the caregiver. How do we want to be treated? Number four preparedness for practice. By exposing students extensively to the workflows team dynamics and challenges of a real radiology department, they would transition more seamlessly into professional practice at the graduation. The clinical immersion develops confidence and readiness. I say yes to that because I really felt like I was prepared to go from school to the actual working world. I was ready by my second year. I felt like really prepared and that is what your clinical training does. Number five, finally, professional socialism. Rotations allow students to apply their new radiologic technology identity network with practicing team members, demonstrate their work ethic, and start navigating healthcare cultures. It is a culture. Every modality in radiology has a culture. The more modalities you rotate through, I'm going to tell you, you learn what it means to be a Technologist and you're able to really, really network and move through the radiology departments and professions seamlessly after that. And it's essential to your future career growth as a student you're always learning. You're always interviewing. You're always networking. Don't forget as a student. You are also showing up as a professional as well. Clinical training has all of these five valuable things. You have to deal with equipment and procedures that in your clinical rotation, equipment is a big part. So in your clinical rotation, equipment and procedures are going to be huge. So we're going to discuss some of the equipment and procedures that you as a student will learn about. It's going to be a wide variety as well. Now, I'm not going to talk about each maker, but we're going to just hit on the equipment and the key procedures. The equipment, you have analog and digital x ray units, fluoroscopy machines, computed tomography or CT scanners, mobile x ray machines and C arms, contrast media injectors. Sometimes you inject by hand, but many times you use a contrast media injector. Radiographic fluoroscopic procedure tables, image receptors, traditional film cassettes, and digital receptors still are in place in other facilities, the hospitals usually have a lot of the newer things, but some of your other facilities don't. And lastly, monitoring devices, vital sign monitors, and that is going to be different in every radiology modality, especially MRI, you're not going to be able to bring in the same type of crash cart for the one that's an MRI. It never comes in the room for MRI. So you got to kind of think, and then you have ventilators for MRI that go into the room. You have different ventilators that will go into any other room, but they can't go into the MRI unit. So all of these monitoring devices are different. Even the EKG leads on MRI patients are going to be different. Now we're going to talk about key procedures that you're going to see in clinical rotations, chest x rays, you are going to do so many chest x rays. You are going to be able to do them literally with your eyes closed, but that's a good thing. Abdominal x rays as well. Orthopedic studies, which are bones, joints, extremities, hands, feet, those types of things. Sinuses, gall exams. Those are really common. Gastrointestinal and urinary system imaging. Sometimes patients have to drink contrast, so you'll get to learn about the different contrasts because there are different types of contrasts for a different type of procedures. Angiography and catheter insertion procedures. You're going to learn about that. Even a CT, interventional, you'll see them in all the different modalities. Surgical studies and mobile exams. Pediatric radiography, one of my favorite. I love peds. Absolutely love peds. If I ever go back to a hospital full time, I'm probably going to go back to pediatrics. Trauma case, x rays, and just trauma in general. You see trauma in almost every modality. And during your rotations as a Radiologic Technology student, you are offered rotation opportunities in advanced imaging modalities like CT, MRI, mammography, nuclear medicine, vascular imaging procedures, and bone density. And working alongside Radiologic Technologists and clinical instructors during these 1200 plus hours of clinical requirements, you gain as a student invaluable experience operating state of the art medical imaging technology and performing these broad scopes of radiographic procedures on real patients, which is going to prepare you for the real world after graduation. Oh my goodness. So I would love for any of you, if you are a Technologist, In the comments, share your personal experiences during your training. Leave a review. Let me know what was your experience with radiology school. If you're in school now, if you're a Technologist, I would love to hear it in the review or in the comments. So my personal experience during training, I enjoyed it. I took advantage of it. If you've watched my videos, you will hear me always talk about how I went to a two year program with the option for four. I opted for two because I was grown and I needed to work after school. I worked as a truck driver. I had several businesses. And my last one was driving trucks for FedEx and I have a CDL still to this day. I finally let go of a lot of my certifications or endorsements, but I still kept a few because FedEx paid for all of those. And I used to drive. I love driving, but I knew it was a stepping stone for me to go to school for radiology. So I worked for a year, saved up all of my money, moved back home, sold most of my things except my car and my TV. And my bed and I moved back home, which was huge for me because that's hard to move back home. But I am so grateful to my mother for allowing me to do that and not have to worry about having to work my first year. She was like, just finish school, honey, just finish school. And I am so grateful for that. So if you got someone in your life that is supporting you, however, they're able to support you. Thank them. And if you can't thank them now the way you really want to, just say thank you. And then when you get some money and you want to do something for them, do it, whatever it is. But they just want to see you succeed. My experience was I applied to all four programs that were in my area. Two said no and two said yes. One was a private expensive university and the other one was a hospital based program. And I was like, Oh my goodness, I can't afford that one. But I really didn't want to go to the other one. The one I wanted to go to didn't accept me. It was a hospital based program as well, but it's one of the top trauma centers. And I just really wanted to go there, but they didn't accept me. So what was the girl to do? My mom was like, you're taking the private university and we're going to get you money. And I'm going to tell you, I'm glad I did it because It taught me so much about networking, about different type of facilities because they own so many facilities. I was able to go to a plethora of facilities to learn. And that was the key thing for me, I think. But in my first year, I wind up finishing All of my prerequisites that I talked about earlier, we have a certain amount of exams to get done during the two years. I got them done in one year. I just put the pedal to the metal and I did it. And in the second year, there was nothing left for me to do. As far as exams, I still had to get the hours, but I didn't have an exam. My goal was to rotate through every modality in radiology that was present. Then there was no pet scan back then and nuclear medicine I wasn't really interested in. That's really like the only one I didn't rotate. Radiation therapy was my first thing. I rotated through there for months. I enjoyed myself. I really wanted to do that. I applied for that after school, but I was not accepted, but CT was my second one that let me rotate through that. I learned how to do IVs while I was still a student in x ray, which translated over to CT because you had to do your own IVs. And I got plenty of practice in CT to do IVs, but I really enjoyed CT scans back then. And they were slower scanners, so the technology has changed a lot, but I wound up getting a job after school. X ray was offering me a job. CT was offering me a job. It was more money. I took it. And then I wound up getting a management job after that at a urology office. And I did other few things as well that were within the radiology realm, which was giving me experience. And I just, I really appreciated my training. Take advantage of your training and all the opportunities that you can get your hands on while you're in school. It will pay off once you graduate. Now we are coming to the wind down of this conversation of how to become a Radiologic Technologist. Let me know if you guys really are getting value out of this and be sure to subscribe. Be sure to download this episode. Be sure to leave me a review if you can, please. So I can know what you liked about it, what I can do better next time. I want to bring really valuable content because I really love this profession. This is a great profession. It's been very good to me and my family for the 21 years that I've been a part of it and my husband for about 16 or 17 or 18, I'm not sure I lost count. Maybe when he becomes a guest on here, he could tell me how long he's been a Radiologic Technologist. But now we're going to talk about the certifications and licensing because you guys, we are not just go sit down and take a little certification and now you're a Rad Tech. No, they are important to get and to keep. I am going to say that again. They are important to get and to keep. You have to be certified, get certifications and state licensing. They are crucial credentials for Radiologic Technologists for several important reasons. I'm going to give you four. Number one, it validates expertise. When you obtain credentials from the American Registry of Radiologic Technologist or A RRT approves, Technologists have met the nationally standardized testing measures of knowledge and clinical competency. This assures healthcare employers and patients that they are qualified to perform radiography duties. Remember earlier when I said, if you're a patient listening to this podcast or watching this somewhere else, please. Ask the person that is doing your radiology exam. Are they a RT? That is a registered Technologist. That is someone who is certified and has had the training and the clinical competency and the knowledge to perform radiographic procedures on patients. That is key. Number two, meets legal standards. Many states legally require Radiology Techs to obtain a state license in order to operate radiography equipment and to work in healthcare settings. Certification is often needed prior to state licensure. Staying properly credentialed is necessary to comply with regulations. Number three, advances the profession. I am all about that. When Technologists earn the proper high stakes certifications and licensure, it increases trust in the entire field's commitment to education, safety standards, evidence based practices, and quality patient care. This cements, radiography status as a respected medical profession. And that is why I did this podcast because I know we are professionals. I want to advance this profession. I love it. It's been really good. And I have been a patient before I was actually a professional in radiologic technologies. I've been getting exams under fluoroscopy as a kid for years. I have a family member that got into radiology. And that is how my love of it began. I definitely want this profession to advance and I hope you all get more knowledge out of what we do as Radiologic Technologists and the training we have to get and keep. Number four supports mobility, widely recognized and standardized national credentials like the ARRT, certification facilities. Reciprocity and license transfers between states to provide better job mobility for Radiologic Technologists. That's key. Imagine if you got all this training and you move to the east coast or move three states over. They got different rules for Radiologic Technologist. Now you got to go back to school all over again. No way. Oh, my goodness. I would never want to do this profession if that was the case. So these certifications and licensing, especially by the A R. R. T. are vital. I'm going to explain the process of obtaining necessary certifications and licenses. Here are some typical steps to earn these essential qualifications in state licensing to work as a Radiologic Technologist. Notice there are two things, certifications and state licenses. There are five states in the U. S. that are not state licensed when it comes to Radiologic Technologists. But everyone has to be nationally certified. Those are two different things. If you're thinking about going to school, number one, make sure the program is accredited. They are accredited and by whom, who would they be accredited by the ARRT? You want to earn an associate's or a bachelor's degree, The program needs to offer those two things. I have heard about people going to school and thinking they are going to an accredited program and they're just getting a certificate. That is not a J R C E R T. Remember I talked early about the Joint Review Committee on Education in Radiologic Technology? They are the governing board that accredits programs and they make sure these programs stay up to date. They are on it. If you go to a program that is not J R C E R T certified, you are wasting your money. There, I said it. Your program has to be an associate's or bachelor's program. There are no more certification programs out there. No more hospital based programs that are not attached to an associate's degree minimum. I am doing this so you guys don't waste your money. There are a lot of people out there going to programs that are not accredited. There are people out there, schools out there that are passing off to unsuspecting people. They could be a registered Radiologic Technologist and they are not accredited. Number one make sure the school is accredited by the J R C E R T. Number two get nationally certified upon graduation immediately apply to take your certification exam from the A R R T the American registry of Radiologic Technologists so you can become a R T a Registered Technologist. Yes, that is so important. And then make sure if you live in a state, now your school will help you with this, but if you live in a state that is a licensure state, you must submit an application to your state's radiologic technology regulatory agency, along with eligibility documentation, like certificates, transcripts and background checks. You must pass state jurisprudence exam. Take and pass an additional state specified jurisprudence exam on radiation safety laws and regulations. Get a state license. Once approved, you receive your official state license and you are legally practicing as a Radiologic Technologist in that state. I used to have about five or six licenses because I did not work in just one state. I worked as a traveler in other states, so I had to have these licenses. Because even though I had the ARRT, these particular states required their own state licensure. So I had to, in addition to the ARRT continuing education credits that I had to get. I also had to follow the rules of the state licensing and follow their continuing education as well. It usually worked together, but I still had to follow the rules. And I had like five or six at the time. I don't have anything but two now. Lastly, this is so important. Renew your certificates, maintain your ARRT registration through ethics standards. And that is so important. Be ethical. That is the worst reason to lose your ability to practice radiology, even if it's temporary, but permanently. You can lose your license permanently. You work too hard, be ethical. You don't want any marks on any kind of license that you have. That's all I'm gonna say. Just don't get any marks on it. Renew state licenses every one to two years by completing these required continuing education credits that I talked about earlier. Now I'm gonna give you some insights into maintaining those professional credentials because that is important and I had to kinda put my foot down with myself too early on because you get kind of lax, don't get lax. I'm here to tell y'all the truth. I mean, we all have had it happen to us. Don't get lax. Don't do it at the last minute and do things that really challenge your ability to really grow in the field. So maintaining current professional credentials through certification, renewal, and continuing education is imperative for Radiologic Technologists to demonstrate ongoing competency and keep legally working in the healthcare system. The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, ARRT certification, they require registrants, to renew their national certification annually and complete 24 hours of qualifying continual education every two years. Renewal demonstrates that the Technologists uphold current knowledge standards and ethical practices. CE credits show commitment to continuously advancing technical skills and patient care abilities on pace with the latest evidence based imaging procedures. If certification is not renewed on time, through submitting CE credits or paying renewal fees. If you don't pay your fees, or if you don't get your CE credits, which are due in two years, but your fees are due every year, the Technologist will face ethics review, probation, suspension, or even permanent revocation of credentials by the ARRT. Yes. You can lose your license and you don't even want to be suspended. You don't even want to be on probation. You don't even want to be under review. No, you don't want any of that. Pay your dues every year and get your 24 hours. You can do things like get another registry. I always encourage you, even if you don't think you want to do it, get another registry. That's your 24 credit hours. If you get a registry every year or something, that's two years taken care of. If you do one this year and then two years later, get another one. It doesn't hurt. It only increases your ability that I'm going to talk about next to make money. Now state radiology license. Most states require an additional 12 to 24 hours of state approved CE courses to maintain a valid radiologic technology state license, which is true. I remember having almost five or six of those and it was a lot. Failure to complete sufficient continual education by renewal date will result in expiration of the state license. Now, that's the state license, not the ARRT. Technologists cannot legally operate radiography equipment or work in healthcare with an expired or active license. Reinstating a lapse state license requires paying additional fees and sometimes retaking exams. Allowing state licensure to lapse can seriously disrupt a Technologist's ability to work. In summary, keeping ARRT registration and state licenses current through timely renewal and continued education is essential to a radiology professional to demonstrate they're upholding industry standards and technically competent year after year as imaging technologists and patient care procedures continue advancing. And let me tell you, There's some new stuff that came out this year. You got to stay on it. So I'm going to talk money now and job opportunities because that's why you're going into radiologic technology, right? I hope so, because it is a wonderful part of what we do. We make good money for what we do. We're not rich. We're not dropping a lot of dollars here compared to some other people. It depends on what you feel is good money. For me, I feel like the profession that I chose makes good money for what we have to do, and it's provided a decent life for me and my family and so many other Technologists that I know. So there are more diverse job opportunities available in radiology technology. I'm going to tell you, you can work in a hospital. In the hospital, you can work in the ER, ICU, OR, Cardiovascular, women's health, Pediatrics, mobile. I mean, it's so much you can do. Outpatient clinics and centers. You can work with cancer patients, urgent care, orthopedics, again, dental centers. There are so many things you can work in a doctor's office, orthopedics. They love having their own x ray right in their facility. Chiropractors as well, a busy chiropractic office. Podiatry. Have you ever thought about that? Mobile services. You can travel, go to nursing homes, prisons, personal residences, disaster sites. Mobile is huge. You can work in equipment sales. You travel a lot, but. You could also find one where you remote sometimes and then you just have to travel to your site. You could work in education, develop curriculum, teach the next generation of rad tech students, radiology students in degree programs as professionals or as a clinical coordinator in education. You can even work in management. Many people ask me, should I get a bachelor's or an associates? In the equipment sales, education and management, your bachelor's and higher will make a big difference. Other than that, you don't have to get a bachelor's to work in radiology to make good money. That's not going to change unless you get into the education management or the equipment sales. That's where your education is really going to either help you or maybe hold you back. It depends because. Even people with associates have these positions because they have the experience depending on how bad they want you. Now, I'm going to highlight MRI and CT because that's what I do. These are specializations. MRI is basically magnetic resonance imaging, and the Technologist uses the magnetic fields and radio waves to produce detailed multi planar anatomical imaging. And they specialize by getting additional certifications. We have to give contrast. It's a gadolinium dye. We have to monitor patients. We have to set people up on tables. Positioning is huge in MRI. If you do not know how to position, and not interested in learning about positioning, you probably do not want to do MRI. It is heavy on the positioning. How you place that patient on the table is how good or bad your scan is going to be. And it's no getting it right unless you know how to put the patient on the table and position for tendons, ligaments. Like MRI, we don't just scan bones. Many times we rarely scan for bones. It is usually for tissue, ligaments, organs, vessels. If you don't know your anatomy or know how to position or know where to set things up to get vessels, you're not going to be able to do it. It's, it's really complex. It's very complex and you need an extra ARRT credential that's going to enhance your income and marketability. Now, I always say, I think you should go for CT. If you do MRI, you should always do CT along with it. To me, they're like. Brother and Sister. But it's computed tomography. It uses x-ray detector, so the same principles from radiology technology school. So you're not changing principles like you are in MRI. So it may be easy to go from x-ray radiologic technology school to CT school, and then to MRI school because the concepts from CT to X-ray don't change it's radiation. MRI is where you change, it doesn't use ionizing radiation, but CT is the same with MRI cross-sectional slices. You're able to employ both of those in the two MRI and CT. Those are the similarities with that. That's why they kind of work together. Most facilities who have a CT scanner have an MRI scanner, so they would love to have a Technologist who can scan both. Wow. One tech that could do everything. That's amazing. So other specializations are going to be Manager, Supervisor, interventional Radiology Technologist, Mammography Technologist, Bone density Technologist. Radiology educator, trauma or emergency radiography, operating room radiography. There are people that specialize just in those areas. Radiology informatics. That is huge. I want to learn more about that. I've got someone coming on this podcast later to talk more about that. So stay tuned, make sure you guys subscribe and leave a review. Let me know if that's, give me some ideas of things you want to hear as well. And number 10, tele radiology. You get to send images to offsite radiologists. There are people that work in departments where they work remote, or they do the 3D and teleradiology. They do this stuff and they send it remotely to the doctors. It's just really amazing. And medical imaging research. A lot of people don't know about this. I was able to do this for a few years. I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And veterinarian MRI. I had a couple offers to work at a huge veterinarian clinic. Horses and just a lot of large animals and they did their own MRIs. Now we're going to talk money here. Cha ching, cha ching, cha ching. This is just an average because one thing about radiology, I get this question a lot on my social media, how much do you guys make? And The numbers are different. Everybody's going to be different. It depends on if you're new out of school, if you've been in the industry for a long time, if you have certifications, what kind of experience do you have? Do you work in a hospital? Do you work in a chiropractor's office? Do you work in a small town or do you work in a big city? Are you working at a trauma center? You get the point. I'm going to kind of pop up these salaries. MRI tech is usually 65 to 90K. And then you have your levels. So different levels, you might be an MRI tech one. So you're not going to make what an MRI level three would make, or a manager or MRI sales rep or MRI clinical instructor. Everybody's going to make different depending on where you're at. CT Technologists are usually 60, 000 to 85, 000. Now again, if you're on the West Coast or somewhere where the cost of living is a little higher or you're working at a facility that pays more, there are so many variables to this, but this is just a general idea, an average, okay? So please don't hit me in the comments and go off that I'm just leading you guys on, but I'm telling you the truth. Next manager supervisor, 80, 000 to 115, 000 interventional radiology tech, 65 to 95 thousand. They take a lot of calls. This can up your pay in the call. The amount of call they take. Mammography Technologist, 60 to 80, 000. Bone density technologist, 55 to 70, 000. Radiology informatics, 70, 000 to a hundred thousand. Medical imaging researcher, 75, 000 to 120, 000. Radiography clinical instructor, 65, 000 to 80, 000. There you have it. That's the money you guys, that's the money. So there are certain things you could do to increase the money. So don't think that is like locked in. And the other way is get to know Technologists as you're in school, talk, network with them. Don't just come right off the bat and say, how much do you make? You're probably not going to get either a truthful answer or answer at all. Befriend people, get to know people, show your work ethic, show your abilities. And as conversations happen, you'll get to understand how you can price yourself and people will be willing to help you to negotiate so you can come out making your worth or at least know how to average it. I'm just going to give you a glimpse into the day in the life of me as an MRI tech. Typically, I'm not jumping out of bed because I'm not a really big morning person, but it depends sometimes I'm going to start really, really early, patients will be there at six in the morning. Other days patients aren't there to nine in the morning. So it depends on when I start, but my day usually starts in the morning. I arrive at my department in my scrubs already. Scheduled patients are, like I said, already there. They filled out their paperwork. I usually bring them back once they're ready and say they're there for a lumbar MRI spine. Depends on if they're getting contrast or not. If they're not getting contrast, you know, of course you greet the patient. I also verify who the patient is, verify by date of birth, full name, and what body part are we doing? I want to make sure they don't have any metal implants. They're not claustrophobic. They're not pregnant. They don't have any type of pain patches or nicotine patches on them, which have metal elements in them, which can burn them. All of these things are important before I ever start the scan. And then I explained the scan to them and everything that will happen during the scan, the loud noise. They can have music, if it's a type of scan where they can't have music. I always make sure my patients go to the restroom before we get started because there's nothing worse than getting somebody who is comfortable on the table after being claustrophobic and then they got to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle. Just a tip, but then I get them positioned on a table, comfortable, give them earplugs. They are required to have hearing protection, not just music, but hearing protection. And I then use the protocol for that particular diagnosis and study that is needed to be done. And I actually operate the machine to get the images and use a software to do all of my image taking and reconstructing. And I send those images once they are adequate type of imaging to our archiving data system. So the Radiologist can then view them and interpret them and get a report done that's going to be given to the patient's referring doctor. And my shift usually continues with different types of MRI exams throughout the day, various patients usually get a lunch at most places. If not, I don't get a lunch. I'll eat right there in between patients. That happens a lot depending on if patients come on time depending on if the machine decides to work or not, you kind of get behind. MRI just got a roll with it. Everything does not happen as planned in MRI. That's just how it goes. We do quality checks before we actually scan patients on the scanner. So I have to do a QA, a quality check, make sure my crash cart is up to date with all my medications in case someone has a reaction. I make sure that everything is stocked in my room. And at the end of the day, end of the day, I put that crash cart away, lock it up. And I make sure everything is stocked in the rooms for the next day. Order supplies if I need to. That's usually about it. Make sure everything is secure and locked up before I leave, because I do not want anybody sneaking into the MRI room while no one's there. It's not a site you want to come back to in the morning. And the rewards of the profession for me have been. I enjoy what I do every day. I love meeting new people, different people every day, and being able to help people figure out what is wrong with them. Like there's nothing more irritating. And let me know if you guys agree with this, then having this nagging problem and no blood work is telling you what it is, no doctor's exam is telling you what it is, but you get this radiology test and it is going to. Open up everyone's eyes to what is going on most of the time inside of your body, because there's nothing like radiology that can see within the body, within vessels, we can use software to look even deeper by removing bones in the software and being able to see the tissue itself. It's just amazing. And I appreciate it. It's a rewarding profession and it pays well for what we do. I'm grateful to have been doing it for 21 years. In conclusion, I want to summarize just the key points. Radiology is the third largest medical profession. How do you become one? Number one, apply to the school and apply to all schools, as many as you can. In school, make sure you get all your prerequisites done, get your GPA up. Shadow at a radiology facility. As a student, do your best, give it your all, make sure you specialize, learn new modalities, stay up on your certifications, your CEUs, make sure you network, have the rewarding career of making the money that you need to make to enjoy life and take care of yourself and your family. I encourage you ask questions, share your thoughts in the comments. Be sure to check out my other episodes and until next time, thank you for watching and be sure to subscribe. Have a good day, everyone.

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And that's a wrap for this episode of a couple of rad techs podcasts. We hope you enjoyed our discussion of the fascinating world of radiology and learn something new about the role we play in the healthcare industry. If you have any questions or topics that you love for us to cover, feel free to reach out and let us know what they are. And you guys, please, if you enjoyed this podcast or any of the other episodes, we want to hear what you. Thought leave us a review. Mama's got to pay our bills. It helps. And until next time, stay tuned for more insightful and informative episodes of a couple of rad techs podcast.