How to Launch Your Career as a Radiologic Technologist: 6 Key Steps to Success

Welcome to a couple of rad techs.

My name is Chandria, and I am talking all things radiology here.

We are doing a live question and answer, and I'm excited to be here, you guys.

So I hope you all can see the comment section.

You are able to comment if you would like to.

I would love, love, love to be able to see what you guys are, you know, questions you have.

I want to be able to make sure I can answer those questions.

We're going to get right into it.

I've got my phone here, and I am actually going to be answering questions from my TikTok page.

And why?

Because people are always asking me questions on TikTok and I want to be able to answer them.

And today we're doing just that.

So if you guys have any questions, first of all, be sure to go ahead and drop them in the comments so that way I can be able to end the live chat so I can be able to answer those questions.

If you have questions right now, I can do just that.

So let's get into it.

I just want to make sure I've got my chat open here.

Let me go over there.

Yep, there we go.

Okay, I've got the chat and I've got my phone.

So first question.

First, let me tell you what a radiologic technologist is.

We take imaging using radiation, using sound waves for ultrasound.

We use radioisotopes that are injected into a patient.

We use live fluoro, which is radiation, and we use sound waves.

And yeah, that is really it.

I might have missed one.

But radio waves as well, mri.

So not all parts of medical imaging use radiation.

I don't know if you knew that, but we don't always use radiation.

Sometimes we use sound waves.

But many people wonder, are we radiologists?

So let's first get that out of the way.

We are not radiologists.

We are not radiologists.

We do not interpret the images.

The radiologist is the doctor.

And that doctor actually goes to school to become a medical doctor.

And then they specialize, just like your surgeons specialize in doing surgeries.

We do the opposite.

Our radiologists, excuse me, do the opposite.

And they actually specialize in reading exams, whether it be MRI, CT, musculoskeletal.

They also do procedures.

So we work alongside the radiologist in doing procedures, such as putting in ports, putting in removing blockages under live flora, also doing barium swallows, where patients need to swallow a barium contrast.

That allows the doctor to be able to tell if this patient has any issues going on with their swallowing or with their.

Or just with them, period.

So that is pretty much it.

How it goes with radiology.

A lot of people just wonder like what do you guys do all day?

So I thought that was pretty interesting to share with you all.

And yeah, let's get right into it.

So here we go.

Got my phone here.

I'm going to go through the questions.

Good evening.

Hope all is well.

Wanted to ask if you know about any program, programs to get into radiologic technology?

Yes, I do.

So what I encourage people to do if you want to find a program, make sure that program is accredited, which means they have the curriculum that is actually backed by.

Excuse me, that's actually backed by the accreditation, like the jrcert, that is the Education Governance.

There are other agencies as well that govern education.

But you want to make sure the school that you have has a good reputation.

Reputation is not under any kind of stipulations by these governing agencies that might mean that they could lose their accreditation.

Have they had any deans?

You can look, all of that is public knowledge.

You can go online to their accreditation boards that they claim to be accredited by and see if they've had any kind of slap on the hand.

Schools get slaps on the hand too, by accrediting boards and they basically break down what those schools need to work on.

Maybe they found that they have too many students and not enough educators.

They don't have enough students passing the final exams of the state boards.

That's the telltale sign of possibly the quality of education that's going on with that program.

And the other issue is going to be making sure that the program has basically educators that are qualified to teach so and that they're teaching the students exactly what the curriculum says and that the outcomes match what they're saying.

Which means if students come into this school saying you're going to give them this type of education and they're going to walk away understanding and knowing this, and then they leave and they're not, then that's a problem.

So you become.

I'm going to share my screen so you can be able to see what programs.

There we go.

I'm going to see if I can do that.

There we go.

Perfect.

So I am going to share my screen and then you'll be able to see how it is that I find programs.

So there's a website that you guys need to go to.

It is going to be arrt.org this is very important that you go to this particular website because you want to be able to sit for Your license.

So a school may have an accreditation by an education board like the JRCR cert, but they also need to be accredited by the arrt, a licensing board.

They need to have that accreditation by them as well.

Because this is how you are going as a radiology technologist.

Be able to work in hospitals and to be able to work in facilities that require you to have your ARRT license.

So if a school does not have that and they may have the armor it license and not the art, but you were going there thinking, oh, I'm going to be able to sit for my arrt, you're not.

Because that school does not follow the curriculum of the arrt.

They follow the curriculum and are accredited by the army certification.

So it's important that you know in becoming a radiologic technologist, what schools and who they're accredited by and are they still holding up to that accreditation?

Are they on, what is it called?

Not suspension, but are in probation.

Schools can be on probation as well.

What happens?

That has happened.

So you want to do your research before going into this school.

So you're going to go to the website and you're going to get to this page and it's find an educational program.

You are going to let me get to it, then I can actually show it.

So you're going to go down here and choose what program are you interested in going to?

Let me just explain this a little bit because it might be confusing.

Why does it give you all of these options?

Can you choose all of these?

What if you don't want to go to school for radiography at first?

Okay, so can I just go to these other ones?

Yes and no.

There are primary pathways to becoming a radiologic technologist.

Let's see if we can start here.

So if you want to, here's an overview of our profession.

We are actually radiologic technologists.

That is our bread and butter.

That is where we start.

You find educational programs by clicking on the ARRT approved educational programs.

You can search by discipline.

We're going to go back to that area and we're going to find that.

But first, what it is, what is it that we do?

I already told you what a radiologist does.

But what is it that we do?

As radiologic technologists?

We make up the third largest group of healthcare professionals, surpassed in number only by physicians and nurses.

Wow.

So that's, that's amazing.

We do have a primary responsibility as technologists.

We create the images of patients bodies using medical equipment.

We don't work on the equipment.

That's why we're not technicians.

The working on equipment to get these images is not the only thing that we do.

We have to manipulate.

We have to know science, we have to know math, we have to know geometry, part of that math.

And depending on what profession we're in.

And we have to understand pathology and anatomy and patient care and put all of those things together and get the best possible images the safest way.

Sometimes we have to inject radiopharmaceutical agents into patients, sometimes they have to drink them.

We have to do all of these things.

We have to dose the patient.

We have to understand what's going on with the patient's body in order to make sure that they are supposed to get these things.

You know, it's not like we just, oh, here you go, Boom.

Drink this.

We have to understand what the patient's background is, what they're going through, what would their work day be like.

So it requires advanced education.

That's a minimum of two years to become a radiologic technologist.

Right.

So that is, that's two years.

We have a degree program that's not any weekend course.

If someone's promising you a weekend course to become a radiologic technology technologist, you're not going to be a radiologic technologist.

So just know the difference.

When you're choosing a school, it must be giving you actual degree.

Minimum of an associate's degree.

Some programs have bachelor's degrees as well.

You also want to make sure that if you choose radiologic technology that you understand, you most likely work in a hospital, physician's office, outpatient center, even a laboratory.

We work in different facilities, but it just depends.

You're not stuck in one or the other.

We also can travel.

Just like you hear about nurses being travelers, we can be travelers as well.

We can work and make money traveling.

It's been, it's not new.

We've.

I've been doing it for years.

It's been around for a long time.

We're not a new profession, but we really enjoy what we do and we get to help patients in our specialty.

So we have professional societies that we can join and we really encourage that.

We have several here that are listed.

The ARRT is our licensing board.

These are all associations, not mandatory, but it is highly encouraged that you join these Associations, that's where you network, that's where you learn.

You can gain CE credits, they can track your CE credits for you.

It's so much that can happen by being a part of the professional membership societies.

So if you are thinking of becoming a radiologic technologist, if you are one, look up your local chapter, join and see what benefits you can provide and also what they can provide for you.

Now, how do you choose these professions?

I personally went to become a radiographer.

A radiologic technologist.

That's what I went first.

It shows radiography.

That is the actual, actual profession.

That is what I went to school for.

I got my associate's degree in that program from Emory University School of Medicine's imaging program.

School of Medicine does graduate more than doctors for some reason.

People are very confused on that.

But my degree is from the school of medicine.

It's not from the imaging program, it's from the school of medicine.

Some people like are really like taken aback, like with that.

But there are schools of medicine that graduate doctors.

They graduate physical therapists and many others, radiologic technologists.

And yeah, I just always knew schools of medicine graduated more than doctors.

Obviously there are some out there that don't know that even who work in healthcare.

So I'm here to tell you that is the case.

And yeah, it's many people out there who have a degree from a school of medicine that are not doctors.

So let's celebrate.

Everyone, no matter what school they went to, educational programs for the ARRT that you can choose from that are ARRT backed.

Let's just take radiography.

This is what you do.

You click on it, boom, watch all that pops up.

Now this filters it by 10, I'm going to do it by 100.

And there we have 757 items.

You guys, that is a lot of radiology schools.

Just a lot.

And it's from Canada to, I think it's Great Britain and the usa.

These are huge.

You can look at the institutions here, the app address, the city, the state, the director's name and phone number if known.

If not, if you want to just filter by city, I'm going to filter by state.

State is good.

If you just take Anchorage, Alaska, they have one school, the University of Alaska has a radiologic technology program.

You can go to that website and you can learn about their program.

These are all programs.

And then once you go to their website, you can find out do they have JRCERT accreditation.

Once you figured that out, then you want to, oh, wow, okay, let me check out and See, have they been under probation?

Have they followed through on their education?

All of those things.

You want to make sure you're looking at all of those things when you're looking for a school.

How's that?

Does that help?

Now, let's look at these here.

This was a good question that people asked and they want to know, what if I don't want to go to school to be a radiologic technologist and I want to do one of these things?

So you can do what they call a primary pathway or you can do a secondary.

My primary pathway is radiologic technology.

That's how I got into the profession.

Some people get into it by being an MRI technologist, that is their primary pathway.

Or a sonographer, that is their primary pathway.

Radiation therapy or nuclear medicine are primary pathways as well.

Which means what is your number one way of getting into medical imaging?

Why did I leave out radiologist assistant?

Because that is not a primary pathway.

Why did I leave out vascular sonography?

Because it falls under sonography.

So if you go into sonography, that's the other one.

So there are primary pathways that are not just radiography to intermedical imaging.

You can use any of these others as sub radiologist assistant to enter the profession.

Now, this is the clincher.

If you come in as a primary pathway of radiology, radiologic technology, radiography, you then can do any of the professions.

All 11 are open to you.

With another few months or another year of certification.

They're open to you.

But there's a caveat to the other ones.

If you use the other ones as a primary pathway, you cannot do anything but those professions.

You cannot say, oh, I do mri, I want to go over to ct, or I want to go over to radiation therapy, or I want to go over to bone density, I want to go to mammography.

No, you will have to then become a radiographer first and then take certification to get back into those.

Because these other pathways do not qualify you.

They don't fall under the radiology or the radiography curriculum.

So you did not learn radiology because those principles don't follow.

Sonography, that uses sound waves, radiation therapy, nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance imaging, none of those use radiation, if that makes sense.

So radiologist assistant does, and you learn all of those principles in going to school to be a radiologic technologist.

So I hope that was very helpful to your question.

Let's take another question.

I'm going to stop sharing here so we can see.

Let's see.

Perfect.

Okay, so let's get into another question.

That was great.

I'm so glad we were able to answer that.

Let's try another one.

Have I ever considered being a mentor to people who want to go to school to be a radiology technologist?

That's a great question.

And yes, I do mentor.

I have my books field, but I do mentor.

There are several of my friends whose kids are interested in doing something and they've told them about radiology.

Some of them have gone to school for medical imaging, ultrasound, sonography.

Others have gone to school for radiology and they love it.

They absolutely love it.

They can take care of themselves.

They got some schooling within two years and are going back learning, getting more education, but loving the profession.

Their parents are very happy.

Their kids could take care of themselves.

And yeah, so that's how I choose to mentor.

I also go into schools and educate the younger ones on our profession.

So that is really cool.

Okay, let's do another question.

That one.

Okay, so that one wasn't really a question.

Let's see.

Okay, that's not a question.

I have a lot of questions here, but okay.

Oh, this is a good one.

I literally am in the process of making the change going into the change of radiology.

I'm about to start my prerequisites for the radiography program and I felt like I was too old making a career.

Career change.

So I have a whole video on that.

You guys.

Are you too old to go back to school for radiology?

I don't think so.

I was not straight out of high school when I went.

Was it hard?

It was an adjustment to be back in school full time.

That was a little rough because I had come from working the working profession and living on my own and working every day to.

And I took a class here or there.

But it was different being in school full time and testing every other day every week and studying, coming home, studying, studying.

It was a lot.

It was a lot to adjust to.

But I will say, when you're taking your prerequisites, use that as your time to be able to say, okay, this is how I'm going to focus.

This is get your study routine together.

That's your time before you actually get accepted into the program to get your routine.

Get your mind in a place where it's used to studying because it's maybe been out of that routine.

If you're like me, you are working.

So yeah, that's what I would say.

Get your mind in a position to where you are ready for it and use the prerequisites time to do that so hopefully you find that helpful.

Hopefully that was helpful.

That came from Rachel.

Let's see.

I've got another question.

I've got some good ones here.

Okay.

Hello.

Can you give us some suggestions when negotiating new grad CT pay?

We live in Florida and base pay is $28 an hour.

We like to ask for at least 33 to 35 an hour.

Can you please do a video on pay negotiations for new grads if possible.

My daughter is the employee, I'm trying to help her out.

We love a mom that's helping a daughter out.

That's right, moms, you got to help these kids out.

But okay, so I will say this.

I've never worked in Florida as a technologist, but I have done contract work down there as clinical applications.

And from the technologists that I've talked to, they said the same thing.

South Florida in particularly, but Florida does not pay well.

One of the reasons probably is and that I've heard from a lot of recruiters and from people that I know, they just want, and they just want to live in Florida.

They don't really care about the pay like that.

They don't want to live anywhere else.

There are some people that they are not interested in living in cold climates.

They love the beach, they love the food.

They love to be able to have flip flops on all day every day.

They don't want to go anywhere colder than that.

They're perfectly fine down in Florida near the water.

And there's a price you pay for that.

You pay for the convenience of having beautiful weather year round.

You pay for the being comfortable, you know, having that type of lifestyle, that Miami, Fort Lauderdale lifestyle, that beach lifestyle.

It's expensive, but you pay for it in other ways because everybody wants it.

They don't have a shortage of workers down there.

We rarely get kind contract jobs down in Florida.

And the reason is because everybody wants to live there.

And the other party is.

So you're not going to see a lot of high wages like you will in other places because everybody doesn't want to live in Wyoming.

That's why you see agency jobs in Wyoming and you know, places that are freezing cold or places that, you know, just nobody wants to live.

Wyoming is beautiful by the way.

I have friends that live there, have a huge ranch and it's beautiful.

So I'm not saying that it's just every place is not going to be the place that everybody's going to flock to.

They don't have the pick of the litter when it comes to staff so then the staff that are there, the people that are willing to live there, they say, hey, show me the money.

And if you're living in Florida, your daughter's going to stay in Florida.

She has to, she has to interview around.

This is what I tell people.

If you're a new grad, interview at every hospital that's hired that you're willing to drive to.

Why?

Because now you can say, oh, hospital A is paying 23, hospital B is paying 33.

Hospital C, down south.

All of these are in the radius, not too far from each other.

Maybe, you know, traffic is a little heavier in one place or the other.

But hospital c is paying 30 and hospital D is paying.

What is that, 30.

They're paying 32.

So it kind of.

You're in that ballpark.

But I think we look at pay as the ultimate answer to whether we should accept a job.

Hospital A is a university hospital.

Trauma center B is a teaching.

Hospital C is attached to a whole conglomerate of hospitals where we can pick up shifts everywhere and we'll get great experience.

And D gives you free education.

All kind of incentives.

They have the best health care.

Your money they're taking out your check is not a lot for insurance because they have such a good health care plan, but their pay isn't the best.

You know, you have to look at all of those things, and that's what I would teach my child is do not just look at the dollar sign because you could be making $50.

She can make that 35.

But if she's at ABC Hospital and they're working her like to the bone, and her insurance is not that good and she has to pay 400 a paycheck out per paycheck every two weeks is 800amonth just to have okay, insurance that doesn't really cover every time she goes to the doctor, she has to pay out the pocket, never meets her deductible, and she doesn't have to pay for her lunch, she doesn't get any kind of incentives.

She doesn't, you know, like, there's no 401k match or very little.

They match 1%.

There's no education reimbursement.

If your child is just getting out of school for radiology, they should be looking at a hospital that is going to give them the experience getting out of school.

They are not experienced.

Get the experience, get your money.

But don't expect to be paid at the highest level because you have not worked enough that you can be a level two or a level three in a hospital.

Setting.

And I just, I do CT and have done it for years.

And I'm going to tell you, it took me years before I could truly, truly work in a setting alone.

You have to be able to do so much as a CT technologist.

And people have serious reactions during a CT scan.

I'mma tell you, I have never, in any modality I've done had as many reactions as in a CT scan.

And it's like some of the oddest times that happen.

Like, you would look at the patient and you're like, what?

They coded.

I just injected the contrast.

So, you know, just.

They have no allergies.

That's the kind of stuff that happens.

And if you're alone and you're doing that kind of stuff, yeah, you, you're supposed to call it a cold team, but you still need to be able to recognize certain things.

It's just, to me, when you're.

Just because you're out of school does not mean that you should be trying to focus on and fighting for getting all this money when you do not have the experience that will really say you should be paid.

Was somebody who has a lot of experience and can run a whole department on their own without you or anybody else being in there.

There are techs out there that can run two machines and not have any problems and know how to work everything out and put the IVs in because they come down from the floor or come from the ER with no IVs or IVs that don't work.

And you have to be able to keep up with the pace, take your patients back, bring your patients in sometimes, put in IVs, drink them, and be scanning people at the same.

Like, there's so much to what we do.

And number two, you need to be looking also at what does this job have to offer me?

Because if she's just getting out of school, she should be looking, in my opinion, at trying to get the experience.

Also see if you have education reimbursement.

Your employer at that point, while she's just getting out of school, should be willing or have some kind of education assistance to pay for her school.

While you're just getting out of school, go back and finish your bachelor's, get another certification, finish ct, work on your next one.

You should be working at a facility that is going to help you to start early, to get more education, to advance your certification, to advance your degree in the field of radiology.

And the money will come in a matter of a couple years.

I think about.

There are 11 specialties now in radiology that I could be certified in.

I've been doing this 22 years.

If I had done one certification every two years, I could have had them all or a good portion of them and gotten good at a lot of them.

So that's what I say.

I say, you know, really look at what's most important.

And the most important thing is a new graduate getting out of school, getting paid, but realizing you don't even know your worth yet because you have not been in a situation where you have had to work and prove yourself.

Working with a coworker does not mean an experienced coworker does not mean that you know how to be a CT technologist.

To me, I've done MRCT and X ray for a long time, but CT to me was one of Mr.

Has its own troubles and hardships, but CT required because so many patients had reactions, you had to really understand what it is you were doing and recognize issues before they happen.

Mr.

Is very similar, but CT people have way more reactions than they do in mri and they, they happen really fast.

Really, really fast.

And they could be as the person is getting off the scanner, walking out.

And if you're not observant as a CT technologist, you'll let somebody walk right out and get in their car and harm be done to them because you didn't pay attention to certain things that only experience teaches you as a CT technologist.

So I hope this was a good 30 minute conversation.

This has been a lot of fun for me.

This is my first time doing the question and answer.

Wow.

Only reason I'm stopping is because I need something to drink.

My throat is dry and I don't want to get to coughing on you all.

But thank you for joining me and I cannot wait to share more of this Q A live session with you all here on on YouTube.

So until then, be sure to check out my other videos and give me a subscribe and check me out.

Y'all have a great day and thank you again.