Radiology Technician Essay

When you go to the doctor for a broken or fractured bone and are usually sent to the radiology department to get an xray done, or maybe a CT scan or MRI, you are indirectly being treated by a radiologist. A radiologist is a type of doctor who looks at the problem and diagnoses them using modern technology and a variety of imaging techniques. Usually when you are scanned, the one who helps you put your body part in the correct position for the scan is a radiology technician. He is much like an assistant to a radiologist, and a lot of times the patient will never meet the radiologist. Yet other times, patients only have contact with the radiologist. Nonetheless, these radiologists are very essential in our lives and are the reason that we save a lot of time, pain, and money. There are many different aspects of a radiologist, such as how to become one, facilities to work at, outlook in the future years, advancement opportunities, salary, everyday responsibilities, and positives and negatives of this job.

In order to be

a radiologist, one has to be committed to learning about this career and be very sure about their path, as they will be studying this field for the next decade. After passing a four year college and receiving your bachelor’s degree, you have to then complete four years of medical college. Most radiologists then do two-six years of residential college and at least one year of internship. This year of internship could also be the first year of residency. Residential college is very vigorous and students studying to become a radiologist work up to 60 hours a week. Since this is a growing field, competitors are in huge numbers, and in order to find a good job, students must be top performers with excellent scores throughout all their years of college. After college, effective 2013, passing a two-part exam is required for a state license. You must have the license of every state that you work in. Some employers also require board certification by the American Board of Radiology. Becoming a radiologist means a lifelong commitment to this practice and many years of medical study in order to become successful.
Job outlook, salary and wages, and facilities where the radiologist would work at are necessary for them to know before they finalize this career.

The growth rate of radiological positions have an estimated value of 15-21% between 2012 and 2022, which is higher than normal. The growth rate is so high because of the growing number of aging people in America. This leads to the increase in salary of the average radiologist which is now at a whopping 350k. However, this is the result of long hours, night shifts, and a lower amount of vacations. This also depends where the radiologist works. He could work at a hospital, with the government, or own a private practice. With the new technology, scans can be done anywhere with a computer, high-resolution monitor, and internet. This practice is called telemedicine and can be done in even remote locations. These three factors are important to the everyday life of a radiologist and need to be considered

carefully.
There are many ways to advance in radiology such as specializing in a certain field, but they require more studying and internships. Gaining new skills and expertise comes in handy to become an interventional radiologist, who diagnoses and treats almost every organ using minimally-invasive “image-guided” surgeries. This sub specialty requires five more years of training in diagnostic and interventional radiology. Other experienced radiologists leave their job to research in this field or take teaching positions. These options bring a much higher income to the radiologist, however some doctors might decide a more relaxed lifestyle over pay raises, and exclude nighttime, over hours, and weekend and holiday shifts.
There is a vast variety of tasks performed during the everyday life of a radiologist. They are nicknamed “doctor’s doctors” because they solve the problems that physicians and pediatricians are unable to solve. Radiologists scan human bodies using x-rays, ultrasound, nuclear imaging, computerized tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and positron emission tomography (PET).
An x-ray is a series of electromagnetic radiations that pass through the body that take 2-D images to detect problems, especially ones relating to muscles or bones. Ultrasound is another form of medical imaging that uses high-frequency waves to generate real-time images of the human body. Nuclear imaging creates pictures from the body by sending out “radioactive tracer material” which collect the radiation from the body and sends them over to a connected computer. CT scans are one of the most popular type of body imaging which uses x-rays and advanced computer technology to produce either a 2-D or 3-D form of the problematic part. MRIs