What is an Interventional Radiology Technologist

Welcome Jennifer Mashburn to our podcast, a couple of Rad Tech's podcasts.

Again, I'm your host, Chandria, and my guest today is another fellow technologist, Jennifer Mashburn.

She is an interventional technologist.

She is the president of the Atlanta Society of Radiologic Technologists.

She is on the board of the Georgia Society of Radiologic Technologists.

And we're going to have a fun conversation today.

I'm here in Georgia as well, so, you know, even though we're on the virtual, we're actually in the same area.

So pretty cool to have you here today.

Oh, thank you.

It's great to be here.

Yeah.

So tell our audience, what is an interventional technologist first?

So they.

So they know.

I started out in radiography like everyone else with my primary radiography certification.

I actually worked in level one trauma for about six years, and some of that was in the or and then transitioned into interventional radiology, which is a procedural area where we scrub in, we circulate.

We are the right hands for all of our doctors, depending on what service line you're on, for everything from like a TIPS or a trauma bleed to a stroke to a ruptured aaa, we are right there with them working.

So you guys are like, hands on, close to, would you say, as close to like, the OR as you can get when it comes to radiology?

Oh, yes, because we have sterile technique.

We work with scrub tech sometimes as well.

We kind of.

They do the open section, then we jump in and start throwing needles and exposed arteries.

So we kind of work hand in hand.

Yeah.

Well, that's really good to know.

So tell our audience.

Because if we have students listening, or other technologists say we have students listening, how could they look at interventional as another pathway?

Because what we, what we want to encourage is people to stay in a radiology field.

Right.

How long have you been doing radiology?

Ten years, as of May.

Ten years?

Yeah.

And I've been 21.

This month is my anniversary, actually, or 21 years.

I was like, I was driving around my old school and I was like, wait, this is the month.

I graduated 21 years ago.

It's like, I should do something special for my anniversary.

But if you have a student that's thinking about interventional, I personally didn't know about all the things you could do in radiology when I was a student.

I wish I did.

I wish there was something that could, like, really lay it out for you when you first get in.

So how would you explain how students can look at this pathway, besides just a little rotation they get to do as students.

Honestly, I didn't hear about interventional radiology when I was a student either.

I actually kind of fell into it because I'd been working in the OR running C arms for our vascular surgeons, so I'd work with them.

I was like, oh, this is really cool.

And then a job opening for interventional opened up and to be honest, I had no idea what it entailed or what was coming.

And I was just like, okay, I'm ready for a change.

Let's try it.

Yeah.

So I didn't really have like a.

Any exposure other than running a C arm for vascular surgeons, but it's one of the best decisions I've ever made.

And I know our department is actually trying to partner with students and get them into our department to show them what we do.

Oh, that is huge.

Oh, my goodness.

So what are some ways that you guys are.

Maybe you could tell us one way that you guys are partnering with students to make that happen.

I've actually given my executive director of my department contact information for every school within a reasonable driving range of our hospital and the program director's phone numbers, emails, and I'm trying.

We're looking at whether we have articulation agreements already for radiography, so then it'd be easier just to slide those students over for a week or two into our department.

So we're working to try to get more students in with us just to show them what we do.

That is going to be huge.

I was just.

I just did a post on LinkedIn about.

Because so many people in my DMS and on my stories are talking about leadership.

People want to go into leadership.

Especially when you've been in the field for a while or you a few years, you're ready to kind of go in a different direction, but you're unsure.

Like you were just saying, unsure of which direction to go in.

And I love having these conversations because this is the way we make radiology stronger, is showing people that we're the third largest profession for a reason.

Because you have opportunities and options to go within our circle anywhere you want.

And it's just not patient care.

It's just so dynamic in the world of radiology.

So I love that you guys are doing that.

I even would love the idea of doing some type of leadership in the curriculum where students who.

There are some students, they're just wanting to be directors.

That is their main goal.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

But you have to.

You know, kind of start somewhere.

And I think maybe adding that into the curriculum is not a bad start.

So love, love, love what you guys are doing.

And you're going to see big results from that.

And intervention, I think, is a wonderful, wonderful pathway.

It was one that I thought seriously about going into as a student, too.

I just couldn't handle the call.

It was.

It just didn't fit my lifestyle right then.

But there are so many options now.

What do you think about the call.

Jennifer, considering that at 12 o'clock this morning I was pulling blood clots and out of someone's brain, it can be a lot.

You try to find a balance.

We try to help each other out.

Our department, we're very lucky.

We have advocated for ourselves.

We have very strong call policy.

We're required to have eight hours from clocking out to clocking back in the next day because we get murdered on call.

So we have to have that sleep time.

If you want me at my best.

For my patients, I talk to nuclear medicine techs a lot when we do this podcast, Mammoths Pet ct, and what I find is we kind of cross over in modalities a lot.

Let me ask you an interventional which modality would you say you cross over with a lot?

Ultrasound and CT, for sure, 100%, almost every day.

Wow.

So.

And that's what I tell people.

You know, we are all.

We may be different modalities, but we're all still very much intertwined.

Oh, yes.

We actually have to ultrasound the patient before the doctor gets in.

We look at their arteries, their veins, a lot of times, like, I scope them out ahead of time and I'll go to a PA or a doctor and like, hey, this access isn't going to work because I see plaque, I see an occlusion.

Let's change our plan up.

So it's really important for us as techs, we.

I can't do some of the complex ultrasound procedures that our colleagues can, but I can do enough where I can see if there's an issue in what we're going to do.

So it's very helpful to have exposure to those other modalities.

So you guys do ultrasound too, as vascular techs in the, in the IR suites?

We do.

Wow.

Oh, my goodness.

So I do have a question.

Can ultrasound techs then cross over to ir, or do they have to be rad techs first?

You have to be rad techs first.

Just because we are exposing patients to radiation and some of them are excessive doses.

If it's a very Long, complex procedure.

So a ground level knowledge of radiation protection and principles is very important.

I wanted them to hear it from your mouth, you know, just because I've had people ask me, especially over on TikTok, who are ultrasound techs, and they went specifically for them.

They do vascular and they do, you know, they do all of that.

And they're like, well, I could probably just go right over to.

And I was like, yeah, no, you have to do radiation safety and you have to go to the radiology program first.

But to hear it from a vascular IR tech answers that, that question there.

And it shows people the benefits of when you do have radiology to back up a lot of other things, it kind of gives you more options to be able to go into Mr.

Connecticut NukeMed and then pop back into the radiology, the things that require a radiology background.

So I love that.

Now you are the of the Atlanta Society.

Tell us, how did that happen?

My first round as president was actually during the pandemic.

And so I hit the ground running at the right as the pandemic was starting as president of the Atlanta Society.

And then I just started this past May, my second round.

But it all started from just getting involved.

I started out as a student intern with the Georgia Society years ago, and I attended all of the Atlanta Society meetings and got to know a lot of the people there and kind of slowly went from volunteering to help with the committee to volunteering to chairing for a committee.

And then someone convinced me to run for the board.

And so here I am now, like seven years later and oh, wow, seven years later.

What have you seen that the society has done?

Because were you a member from being a student all the way up to that time?

Oh, yeah, I've been.

So student intern for Georgia, student member for bo, student member for the asrt.

I did student leadership with asrt.

So I've been doing stuff since, yeah, I was my first year of X ray school.

Wow.

For you, what would you say joining your local society?

Because a lot of us, we've joined the art and that's, you know, a lot of us, we're definitely on the national level, but locally, why would you tell us technologists it's important to be a part of your local society?

Well, one good thing about both the Atlanta and Georgia Society, we actually work very closely together.

We help each other out.

You'll see a lot of people are I volunteer on committees for Georgia Society.

I'm on the board for Atlanta, we're in communication all the time.

So Georgia is actually spearheading a licensure effort.

James Reeves has actually been the one that's been working very, very hard with legislators here in Georgia to try to get us some kind of either rule change or law in place so that we have something backing up who's taking X rays of our patients.

And as the Atlanta Society, we support that, we give them platforms.

James did an entire lecture at one of our meetings about kind of the progress of the bill and where we're at with it.

So it's one of those things where if you as a technologist want licensure in the state, joining your societies, volunteering, getting involved, that's how that happens.

And that's how we get off that list of five or six states that don't have licensure.

What does not having a license in the state of Georgia, because, you know, some of us have always worked in Georgia, some technologies have never been outside of Georgia.

I have, I've worked outside of Georgia.

And I'm going to tell you, my eyes were opened.

My eyes were open to the things that licensure does do for you.

So for those that maybe don't understand what not having a license for a state when it comes to radiologic technologies, what does that mean for us?

Anyone that takes a six hour, quote, unquote radiation safety course can operate a C arm in an office.

And C arms usually are higher amounts of radiation than your chest X ray.

Like especially for some of your spinal procedures where it might take a little longer because they have some kind of stenosis.

So you have somebody that has just a high school diploma, no education in radiation physics, no education in anatomy, no education in pathology, and how to adjust technical factors for that pathology irradiating our friends and family all around us.

Yeah, I mean, I did a TikTok or Instagram reel to kind of give a visual of that.

And I think I put it on LinkedIn as well.

I'll try to tag it here in a video so people can see it.

It was of a gentleman.

Now I can lay tile, but I mean, do you really want me laying your towel in your beautiful house versus this gentleman who put a corner piece of laminate flooring in?

And the way this guy cut it was amazing.

Like, I would have never thought to, like, do all of that, to get that to seamlessly fit in.

But that's the difference between just someone being able to shoot your X ray and someone actually knowing all the parameters, all of the Safety measures is more than just pushing a button.

And we all know that.

But the average patient and person don't.

Doesn't know that.

And they, like you say, they don't know who's actually doing their X rays.

And I do posts where I tell people ask, are you a registered radiologic technologist?

You know, ask those things.

It might be a tongue twister, but.

But it's worth asking.

So for the technologist who's wondering, well, why do I need to be a part of the society for those things.

To happen, it's about numbers.

Because when you go to your legislators and you say, hey, we have this bill and we're concerned about radiation exposure to our family, our friends, our communities, the first thing they're going to look at and say, well, how many members are in your professional society?

Because they want to know how many people you're representing.

So if you have all 11,000 technologists in the state of Georgia, a member of the Georgia Society, and all of the thousands of technologists in and around Atlanta and the Atlanta Society, we have a louder voice to go to our representatives and say, this is important.

You need to vote for it.

Because without that, if you have two people in each society, they're not going to listen to us.

They're not going to take us seriously because they're not going to think that we're representing people.

That's a good point.

So let me ask you this.

How many technologies roughly are in Georgia or the Atlanta area?

The state of Georgia, it's 10,500 and some change.

It normally floats around 11,000.

Atlanta, I know we don't have definite numbers because the art doesn't give out city data, but I can.

It's at least a few thousand.

So in the state of Georgia, about 11,000.

How many are part of the Georgia Society?

I have not seen their membership data to know, but usually a few.

I want to say a couple hundred of them.

A couple hundred.

So this, this is my question as just a regular technologist, you know, because I wouldn't know what the Georgia and the city and the state societies do differently.

So it's great that you showed and talked about, you know, that they work together, they work in conjunction, because most of the time I would think, well, I only need to be a part of one of them, so which one should I join?

And, you know, sometimes if you give people too many options, you know, they're like, well, I don't know which one to go with.

So I'm just going to go with the one that costs the least amount of money without, you know, really being educated as to.

This one may fit you better, this one, you know, but we still work together.

How are both societies going out to reach technologists?

Because you got to get.

We got to get those numbers up because I want to talk later about what licensure in a state, each state would mean not only for the patients, but also for technologists, because they have to see, how does this benefit me?

You know, how financially?

How does it benefit me for us to be licensed?

What are some of the benefits of having a licensure state?

So I'll go back to that original question.

What efforts are being made to reach all of these 11,000 technologists?

I know it was a few years ago.

They actually, the GSRT purchased a ad and it played in movie theaters.

They actually made a video.

It was great.

It's actually along the same lines of what the ASRT is working on their national PR campaign.

But we did it years ago here in Georgia.

And before you saw a movie, it would play in there like, hey, have you.

Is the person doing your imaging a technologist?

Are you a technologist?

Come join us.

We're trying to reach out to students.

I know I have a list of all the schools in and around Atlanta that we're going to be reaching out to for this coming society year.

We both offer scholarships, not just to students, but if you're a rad tech and you want to go back to school and get your bachelor's, your master's, your PhD, we have scholarships to support you to do that.

So there's a lot of resources between the two that can help technologists, whether you're, you know, in your first year in your career or if you've been doing it for 30 years and you're looking for a change.

Wow.

See, all of that stuff is very, you know, it's new.

Who would know that?

I knew as a student they had student, you know, scholarships and stuff like that.

But a lot of technologists are looking to go back and get their education and on a local level they can qualify for these scholarships.

That is huge.

Now, I do want to talk about what does it look like if a state is licensed, like, for the technologist benefit?

I know, safety to the patient.

Yes, that's number one.

But number two, people are like, well, how is this going to impact my paycheck?

You know, how is this going to impact my work life balance?

Like, what does it do for me in general?

For the other states that do have licensure?

It Normally doesn't require.

Other than California, it's a special case where they have their fluoro exam.

Most states, you just pay your annual or biannual fee.

It's usually not a ton of money, depending on the state.

Again, they kind of prorate it.

If you're going to a more expensive state, more expensive cost of living, it's going to cost a little more.

But you might be looking at anywhere from 25 to $50 a year for your state licensure, which in the grand scheme of things is not a lot of money to make sure that your pay rate might at the end of the day be higher.

Because everyone that's taking imaging is going to be a registered technologist.

They can't kind of low ball someone and pay a minimum wage and tell them to go hit a button in a room without kind of thinking and processing about what they're doing.

So you see in those states, like California, New York, Texas, you know, all of these states, they have licensure.

I've been licensed in those states before when I was a traveler and a couple other states.

And you know, I saw the pay was totally different and the requirements, I mean, I think maybe like you said, only paid and it was a tax write off.

I wrote it off on my taxes because it was a business expense, any of your education and things like that, you know, I was able, I was able.

I'm no tax advisor, but I was able to write it off on my taxes.

But again, like you say, there are so many other benefits, even work, life balance.

I felt working in licensed states, it was just a whole different ballgame.

The way the technologist worked.

In my opinion, that was just, that's just my opinion.

They seemed a little more relaxed.

It was, it was.

I don't want to say I'm.

For lack of.

Maybe you have a better word than what I'm thinking of.

I mean, you're never, you're not worried about someone kind of encroaching on your profession because you have that licensure in place.

So you know, as long as you're practicing within your scope of practice and doing what's best for your patients, no one's going to come around the corner and say, you know what, we can do this for cheaper if we hire this person over here.

I guess that that is a better way to look at it.

There was definitely this more comfortable confidence reassurance when it came to their job.

But I really do see a difference.

And I think sometimes when we have never worked in an atmosphere where There's a license that licensure of the whole state.

You don't really know what you don't know.

And that's maybe the picture that needs to be painted.

Because if you talk to any technologist who's worked in a state that has no license and they've worked in another state that is licensed, they're like, oh no, it's totally different.

Even from the quality of work that you're expected to do.

You're not so much is put on you like that and you're compensated better.

Definitely the pay rate is better in those licensure states.

Now let me ask you, are there certain, if someone wanted to apply, let's say, to the Georgia Society or the Atlanta Society, if someone wanted to apply and they're not sure, should I go to the state level or should I do the city level?

What would you advise them?

Honestly?

I would say do both, because there's different things you can get out of both of them.

There's plenty of people in and around Atlanta that I met specifically through the Atlanta Society.

And I have resources here in Atlanta that are all within an hour away.

But then you also get within the Georgia Society.

There's people I've met throughout the state that I never would have known.

Like I met Kerry Dunn when she was on the board of the gsrt.

She lives in Statesboro and works in Savannah.

She's an educator.

So if I have questions about working with students, I pick up the phone and I ask Carrie, hey, you know, I have a question about this scenario or, you know, what's going on with this student.

Hey, can you give me some advice about what I should be doing?

Or I met the current president of the gsrt, Lisa Stevens.

She lives down in Albany.

I never would have met her if I didn't go to the GSR team meetings.

Or Stuart Bostick, who is like my advisor for all things interventional.

When I have any questions about ir, he's my go to person.

He lives out in Augusta.

I would never have met him had I not gone to GSRT meetings.

So I have this expansive network of people that provide me support and friendship that I wouldn't have had without participating in both.

But it's just something about.

I was just nervous.

It's like that first time job and I have a network of people in the 21 years I've worked with that.

We respect each other, we know each other's strengths.

And I was able to pick up a phone and just, you know, call and say, hey, how do you do this?

How do you do that?

And it's nothing like having that available to you and join us, the societies, if you don't already have that.

And even if you do, joining a society will open and broaden is what I'm hearing you say.

It broadens that even more because in this field, you continue to grow.

I don't care what modality you're in, you're never going to know everything.

Nobody's the top guru on anything.

Everybody has their strength.

And to be able to all come together and work together to help each other thrive and grow and to really help these last five or six states to get licensed, you know, I, I think that's just amazing.

So I, I really, I really enjoy this conversation.

I want you to close it out and let us know what it is you're passionate about.

What you would love to see when it comes to this, local societies on every level, not just the state of Georgia, not just the city of Atlanta, but for all technologists.

Why should they really look at joining their local in addition to the art, their local societies?

Just to give you a better range of experiences, knowledge base.

We provide lectures at all of our meetings.

So you get education in areas you might not know about.

I never knew about interventional radiology as a student.

I learned a little more about it through lectures I attended.

And then you get to know different people in and around the city.

So you never know when your next job is going to come from, your next opportunity is going to come from.

You build this network and community of people.

So when we go through times like COVID 19, and we're all in a pandemic and we're all kind of drowning, you have a network of people that keep you afloat.

I can't tell you how many people over those three years were calling and texting and we're all checking in.

How are you today?

Are you okay?

Are you sick?

We all checked on each other and we wouldn't have that without our professional societies.

And we could even check in with each other about, hey, what's your PPE situation like?

What are your protocols like right now?

And we have that knowledge base.

So we go to our management and say, hey, I know other facilities have X, Y and Z and we need to be doing that too.

That is very good.

That's a great.

Now I can't let you get out of here with one question.

I love to ask the technologist, kind of.

I should have asked it earlier, but we got to do it now.

What's your most Memorable experience working in this field.

I'm trying to think what I can say without violating hipaa.

I'm trying to think what the most memorable is.

I know there was a AAA patient that we did that was literally, they had no heartbeat.

We were doing compressions as they came through the door.

We get them on the table because their aorta had ruptured.

And you know, we're like working really quick, throwing wires up, throwing catheters up.

I'm sitting there with the doctor, like trying to get everything like done without thinking and just having everything up there so he doesn't have to think about what he's doing.

We get a stent in and then I think it was a couple weeks later, my coworker was like, hey, we need to go transport a patient.

And I told him, you have to do it.

And I was like, okay.

And she made me go up to the room and it was that patient and he was sitting up and he was talking.

When he rolled in our procedure room, he was dead, basically.

So that was a really good moment because we don't see our patients afterwards usually an interventional.

So when we get a chance to see, oh, you're okay because we showed up at 2 o'clock in the morning, it kind of changes your perspective of things.

Oh my goodness, that is a perfect ending.

You guys run to your next IR department and just beg to get in.

Jennifer, it's just like she just gave us the best, best story.

I like that you gave that story because some people, you know, they have to give you the funny story because I got a funny story, but a funny story or something that's just so, you know, negative.

But I love that story.

That was really painted IR in a positive light.

And that's what we're all about in radiology.

There are so many good things that many of us have experienced.

Funny, warm hearted things like that.

And that just, that just touches my heart.

So thank you, Jennifer, for being a guest and you are welcome to come back anytime.

And thank you guys for listening to this amazing podcast.

Thank you.