Think You Want To Be An X-Ray Tech? Read This First...

Wanna be an RT? Think it's a quick 2 year degree? Simple...Right? I'll let you in on a little secret...It's not as easy as it sounds.

As a Clinical Instructor for a local university, I can't tell you how many times I see a prospective student come into my place of employment with that silly smirk on his or her face thinking, "This will be a fast way for me to make some easy money!" Ummmm...Not so fast. I ask every single prospective student the same thing, "Why do you want to be an x-ray tech?" Their answer usually consists of, "It looks cool", or "I want to be in the medical field", or "I want a clean, inside job", or, my favorite one so far, "I know a guy who knows a guy that says I can make $(Insert ridiculous figure here) a year by doing this." With all these hilarious answers, I'll give you this. Here are realistic expectations of what to expect from a bonafide Radiology Technology program. I hope every person that wants to enter the field gets a sneak peak at this.

A typical Radiologic Technology program offers you an Associates Degree and is typically a 2 year program. However, for most programs, prerequisites are required to be taken prior to application to said program. I personally attended college for three part time years before I even applied to my program. Once your prerequisites are acquired, you may then apply to the program.

When I applied, I had a 3.4 GPA and I scored over 90% on my Health Occupations Basic Education Test (the standard testing procedure at the time), I had over 5 years experience in the field of Radiology as a report filer, secretary, scheduler, PACS Administrator, and even as an X-Ray Tech (I acquired a state license allowing me to perform basic radiologic procedures a year prior to applying). The program I attended only accepted 18 applicants and 2 alternates and I was lucky enough to be one of the two alternates, (for the record, the other alternate and myself both slid into the program and graduated, while only 12 others did so).

I don't mention this to brag, gloat, or toot my own horn. I mention this because I want to make a point...this program isn't a cake walk. Once you are finally accepted into a program you will be expected to work, for free, performing clinicals at a hospital or free standing clinic, anywhere from 24 to 40 hours a week, while attending classes full time as well. While attending clinic and school, you are inundated with homework, projects, lab work, and research assignments.

While at your clinical site, expect to be treated like a slave. You clean everything, stock all the linen, do all the examinations, and are held accountable for each and every breath you take. You have to put up with a lot of sick people, and the patients as well. Every x-ray technologist you meet has a preconceived notion that you were born yesterday and that you can't figure out a chest x-ray from a KUB, and sometimes they're right. You are repeatedly asked to go get "sterile oxygen", or my personal favorite, "Go to Medical Supplies and grab me a dozen filopian tubes"...All this occurs while you are trying to learn how to do your job.

Intertwined into your clinical hours are your classroom hours. Unlike most medical professions, you are responsible for not only Anatomy & Physiology, Chemistry, and Patient Care, but you must also retain Physics, Radiographic Procedures, Advanced Anatomy, Pathology, and every radiology theory ever conjured up by any guy that thought he was smarter than the guy before him. You are tested on all of these subjects which are ironically disproven in your clinical setting. Therefore you must retain two sets of information, things you learned in class (for test purposes) and things you learned in clinic (for practical purposes).

While you are dealing with the book world vs. real world debate, you have to study for your national registry. This is a 240 question, 3 hour test that covers every single thing you've ever laid eyes on in the past two years. If you score a 74% or less, you've essentially wasted your time attending x-ray school. Pack your bags. Go Home. Do Not Collect $200. If you've selected the right program, this is the test that you have prepared for since you walked in the door on day one and you pass with flying colors (I scored a 94%). You still end up studying for countless hours hoping to catch that one question that you know you don't know. I literally had a study book in my vehicle, taking that last second peek before I walked into the testing center.

Once you graduate and pass your registry, you get to join the workforce and really learn how to take an x-ray. Here's a perfect quote that I heard from a technologist while I was in x-ray school, "You'll learn more in your first year out of school than you did in your two years in it."

How true that is.

Now...Do you want to be an X-Ray Tech?

Curtis Carpenter is the founder and President of Reliable Radiography, based in Vero Beach, Florida.

Showing Compassion When It's Not Easy To Do

How often have you had a patient that you feel extreme sympathy for, you know is wasting your time, or you simply would like to strangle? Nearly every patient in a hospital, clinic, or doctor's office fits this criteria. The important thing is how you control yourself and react to every patient and his or her needs. The facility, the department, your staff, and yourself are all reflected on how you deal with every single patient and ultimately, how it's perceived that they're being treated.

There are many ways to quantify a patient's perception of how they were treated during their stay but perhaps the largest context in which patient satisfaction is currently measured involves hospitals using patient surveys to assess and improve their "hotel-motel" functions and do a better service job to maintain a competitive posture in their markets. The hospital industry's leading independent vendor of patient satisfaction measurement and improvement services - Press Ganey Associates, headquartered in South Bend, Indiana - specializes in producing tested and reliable surveys and national comparative databases. The firm's clients include 40 percent of the nation's acute care hospitals with over 100 beds and 30 percent of those with fewer than 100 beds.

Press Ganey uses patient discharge information to select a sample of recipients who receive mailed satisfaction surveys. Press Ganey's core surveys were designed by focus groups of industry experts who developed lists of topics important to various aspects of health care, which were then tested and refined in test surveys. The company currently offers 35 surveys designed for various health care contexts, including general inpatient, pediatrics, emergency department, outpatient medical practice, ambulatory care, behavioral care, long term care and home health care. The majority of surveys use a five-point scale of responses ranging from "very poor" to "very good."

Whether a patient marks their experience as a "very poor" or a "very good" may very well depend on the amount of compassion that the patient feels they have received. Research evidence suggests that compassion affects the effectiveness of treatment. For example, patients who are treated by a compassionate caregiver tend to share more information about their symptoms and concerns, which in turn yields more accurate understanding and diagnoses. In addition, since anxiety and fear delay healing and compassionate behavior reduces patient anxiety, it seems likely that compassionate care can have positive effects on patients’ rate of recovery and ability to heal.

As far as I'm concerned, the accuracy and expediency involved in getting a patient healed and back to a normal life is the absolute most important thing in the healthcare field. Nothing should take precedence over the patient's safety and recovery. While these are the most important things to focus on with a patient, sometimes it's easy to overlook how a patient feels when they are in a healthcare setting. It's extremely important to constantly remind the patient that you are there for them, that you understand what they are going through, and that you are doing everything you can to make their visit quick, accurate, and comfortable.

None of this is very difficult to do. We all learned in elementary school to treat everyone else the way you would like to be treated yourself, and every healthcare professional has taken a patient safety course in which you learn that every patient shall be treated equally. However, a lot of medical professionals get very comfortable with their jobs and begin focusing on other things rather than the patient. This happens to everybody but the important thing, once again, is how you react to it. Make sure when this happens to you to remember that the patient you are taking care of could possibly be somebody's grandparent, and to treat them with the kindness and respect that they deserve.



Curtis Carpenter is the founder and president of Reliable Radiography, based in Vero Beach, FL

Are There Really Too Many R.T.'s?

It seems to me that there is a preconceived notion in the "radiology world" that there are too many Radiologic Technologists in the so-called employment pool. The theory behind this is that there are tons of public and private educational facilities with radiology programs installed into their curriculum. A radiology program is fairly simple and cheap for an institution to implement and conduct, and the demand of students seems to continue climbing. Along with federal and state subsidies and low interest rates on student loans, a school can produce literally hundreds of Radiologic Technologists per year with limited immediate cost to the student.

There are currently no limitations on how many students an institution may accept although there are rumors and reports that the government is keeping an eye on it. And although there may be a time when the government begins to crack down on graduation numbers, the numbers are still relatively high. The ironic thing to me however, is that radiology continues to be an area with potential staffing shortfalls. While research shows that the shortage of radiologic technologists has eased, projections indicate that demand for radiologic technologists will continue to outpace supply. Recent U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports predict the need for approximately 76,000 additional radiographers between 2004 and 2014. Recent ASRT enrollment studies report that an insufficient number of radiologic technologists will be available to meet the demand for additional staff.

Just as the general population is aging, so is the average age of radiologic technologists in the work force. A large segment of the profession is composed of baby boomers who are approaching retirement age. This demographic also will add to staffing problems. Currently, more than 35% of radiologic technology professionals have reached the age of 50, with the average age rising incrementally the past few years. In addition, the radiologic technology educator population is reaching retirement age quickly, which may represent a greater staffing problem than in other areas of the profession. Educational institutions will be challenged to replace retiring program directors and instructors while continuing to meet the growing demand for radiologic technologists.

The role of radiologic technology staff in the workplace is also shifting. As new career opportunities such as the radiologist assistant become available, organizations will use these advanced-level technologists to increase productivity and workflow. It is anticipated that advanced roles in nuclear medicine, ultrasound and radiation therapy will be developed in the near future.

So, my question is, are there really too many Radiologic Technologists out there? There seems to be thousands of new R.T.'s yearly but statistics show that these new graduates are coming out of school with jobs. How long will this last? I can't pretend to know, but as of now having R.T. credentials means you're working.

Curtis J. Carpenter is the founder and President of Reliable Radiography, a radiology staffing agency based in Vero Beach, Florida.