Speaker A
Radiologic Technology
Explore the role of a Radiologic Technologist, including patient care, job variety, skills needed, and career advice from Loma Linda University Health.
Key Takeaways
- Radiologic Technology is patient-centered and requires strong people skills.
- The profession offers diverse work environments and career advancement options.
- Physical stamina is necessary due to moving equipment and varied work locations.
- Shadowing and networking with professionals are valuable for career insight.
- Job fulfillment comes from positively impacting patient care and outcomes.
Summary
- Radiologic Technologists perform X-rays and fluoroscopy exams to assist in patient diagnosis and healing.
- The profession involves working in various hospital settings, including portable X-rays and radiology departments.
- Career paths include management, teaching, and specialization in modalities like CT, MRI, ultrasound, and nuclear medicine.
- The job requires physical strength, endurance, and excellent interpersonal and communication skills.
- Technologists interact daily with patients, their families, doctors, and care teams.
- Shadowing and talking to current X-ray techs are recommended for those interested in the field.
- Keeping an open mind about different radiology modalities is important for career growth.
- Job satisfaction comes from helping patients and ensuring accurate diagnostic results.
- The role is dynamic and varied, reducing the chance of boredom.
- Patient gratitude and successful exams make the profession rewarding.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker B
Basically, our job entails dealing with patients to do X-rays and also fluoro exams.
Speaker C
I chose my profession because I wanted to help patients and help people along in the healing process.
Speaker D
There's a lot of things that I like about my profession.
Speaker D
When you're working in a hospital, you are all over the place, you could be up on the floor doing portables.
Speaker D
You could be in the radiology department doing a fluoroscopy exam.
Speaker B
You can interact with many different kinds of patients on a daily basis.
Speaker C
You can go into management down the line or you can even go into teaching if you enjoy and have the patience to teach students about medical radiography.
Speaker D
There's so many different aspects of radiology in a hospital that it's hard to get bored.
Speaker D
You are moving around a lot, you're going up and down the floors, you're moving large machinery, and so it does require some amount of strength and endurance.
Speaker C
I would say that the most important skill set of a radiologic technologist is having people skills.
Speaker C
You have to be able to interact with multitudes of patients in the day.
Speaker D
You know, I see 10, 20, 30 patients every day.
Speaker D
And not only am I interacting with just the patient, but I'm interacting with their family, with their doctor and everybody else in their care team.
Speaker B
You have to have great interpersonal skills.
Speaker B
You have to know how to communicate with people, your coworkers.
Speaker B
Also the patients.
Speaker C
The advice I'd give that probably be the most important is if you know someone who you can get in contact with who's an X-ray tech.
Speaker C
At least talk to them and maybe get their point of view and also take advantage of any sort of shadow program.
Speaker C
Where you can spend at least a little bit of time, even if it's eight hours.
Speaker C
At least viewing a part of radiography.
Speaker D
My advice that I would give to students is just to keep an open mind.
Speaker D
With X-ray, there's a lot of different modalities you can go into.
Speaker D
You can do CT, you can do MRI, you can do ultrasound, nuclear medicine.
Speaker D
There's just so many different aspects of X-ray.
Speaker D
So it's important to keep an open mind about all the different areas.
Speaker C
An example of what makes this whole program and this profession worth it.
Speaker C
Is knowing that at the end of the day, when you've had patients who are happy, even if you just had one patient in the entire day.
Speaker C
Who was happy and thankful for the work that you did, and you know you did a good exam on them.
Speaker C
And the doctor's going to get the right results and the patient's going to get what they need in the end.
Speaker C
Then you know it's all worth it.
Speaker C
Because you've taken care of that patient as best as you can.
Topics:Radiologic TechnologistX-rayFluoroscopyRadiologyMedical ImagingPatient CareRadiologic Technology CareerCTMRIHealthcare Jobs
