Why Radiology Technology Is More Than Just Broken Bones: A Deep Dive with ASRT Brandon Smith

Tell who you are.

Okay.

There we go.

Perfect.

Okay.

Welcome everyone to let's Chit Chat and Wellness and Travel.

I am Chandria Singleton.

I'm so excited today because we are doing our amazing series on the field of radiologic sciences.

As you know, I've been in radiology for over 20 years as an MRI CT tech and applications tech.

And I feel it's so important that you all understand what radiology really is and what it's about.

So my guest today is Brandon A.

Smith.

He's a native of Southeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, currently employed by GE Healthcare as a radiology application specialist under Digital Services, as well as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at MD Anderson School of Health Professions.

Brandon is an ARRT registered technologist certified in radiography and vascular Interventional.

He's certified imaging Informatics professional as well through abii.

So welcome Mr.

Smith.

Brandon, thank you.

So good morning.

Thank you for having me.

It is such an honor.

I see you moving and, and promoting on LinkedIn is always so amazing to see medical imaging on a timeline.

It is.

And congratulations to you.

I mean, when we connected, I saw that you were going for the going forward and we were voting for everyone.

Such great candidates.

I mean, everybody was amazing and I just love the way you immediately connected back with me when I reached out to you, you know, watched your post and how you really promoted the radiology field.

So tell us a little bit about yourself.

I know I did that amazing bio, but I want people to hear from you who you are and what it is that you do.

I laugh.

I guess the corniest thing I can tell you is when you meet me, the most important detail I can tell you about me is I'm Brandon.

Like people like, what does that mean?

Like no credentials, no resumes.

Like Brandon is just Brandon.

And that means everything to some.

It means nothing to some others, but it's okay.

Find herself in the middle.

So, you know, down here in Houston, Texas, I am bayou born and raised.

And so I'm probably gonna live and die in the bayou.

I travel, but I'm gonna always come back home to the bayou.

I am actually a second generation technologist, so I've been probably.

My story's a little different than some others who may have not been exposed to imaging.

And so my dad's been doing medical imaging since the 80s.

Wow.

And he's a MRI technologist.

And that's probably why I don't do MRI today, because he is.

I crack that joke on every interview I have.

Like, he is, oh, man.

I'm like, dad, I'm glad that you are that enthusiastic about when you love.

It, you love it.

And I'm good, and I'm good.

But see, and those are the things that, you know, help me.

You know, when I tell people I'm an expert in medical imaging, it's like, oh, okay.

Like, you know, Mr.

So what makes me the expert is.

I don't know, Mr.

But I can connect you with the expert who, you know, who does.

And so that's when you're making that network work, you know, and you're plugging in and celebrating the talents of medical imaging professionals and radiation therapy.

And so I try to make sure I'm always conscious of that where my yard ends and your yard begins.

I'm always willing to send people your way and to let you not to let you, to promote you, to demonstrate the talents that you have without me trying to pretend I know something that I don't.

Yeah, I'm the same way.

Someone just posted on my TikTok, I was saying something about MRI and they said, how long is a PET scan?

I was like, I do not know.

But I'm sure someone in these comments will answer.

Sure enough, a pet technologist answered them.

I don't know.

I might do a lot of modalities, but that is not one of them.

And I.

That's the beauty of it.

Yeah, it's so funny.

So now people hear radiology and they immediately think of X rays.

And I find that is all people know about radiology is an X ray broken bone.

But we can image any part of the body.

We are very important to the healthcare field.

Right.

So let me ask you, what is it you do and what is that?

Because I read off that you do vascular, interventional, you know, all of these other amazing things.

But can you tell the people that are listening who don't have a radiology background, what is it that you actually do?

Okay, so when it comes to what I am, I like to break it down like this.

And so not to complicate it.

I am a registered technologist.

So being a registered technologist, and in this scenario, that means that I successfully passed the registry of the American Registry of Radiologic Technologies, the arrt.

And I say that people are well.

Brendan, why you explain like that?

Sometimes run into people that don't know difference in between the Art and the asrt.

And so my primary modality is radiography, which I love to death.

It's my foundation.

I would not be able to do any of the things I do today if I didn't have a solid background there.

And so radiography in my era was truly diagnostic with some dynamic studies like fluoro, interventional or special procedures had been kind of separated in the regions I was at that point.

And it was.

Specials was a thing to itself.

So it was taking static X rays, you know, chest X rays, abdomens, extremities, all that stuff, and doing fluoro studies with barium, modified swallows, IVPs, some tomography, but not a lot, because CT and then with the vi.

VI is what a lot of people will consider special procedures or ir.

And so where we are the unicorn, we are not.

We're doing a lot more than what's going on in a diagnostic rad department, but not as invasive as surgery.

So you find us somewhere in the middle.

And so we are, you know, implanting different devices.

We are either promoting blood flow or we are embolizing and stopping blood flow.

We are willing and Dylan, in a much more like I said, interventional, therapeutic and even in diagnostic ways, depending on what the scenario is, it really elevated my thinking and gave me so much more respect for the radiographer.

When I started to work in the specials and I started to accept, acknowledge and function as a clinician.

Yes.

Versus as, you know, somebody who's just on an assembly line, as people like to falsely categorize us.

And it's not that being in specials didn't change that, but it made me appreciate the things that I was actually doing in radiography because it debunked a lot of myths.

The radiologists or interventionists stopped being the wizard behind the curtain and became somebody on the team.

I fully acknowledge that there's a hierarchy there and different degrees of liability, but it's teamwork all the same.

Nurses stop being a phone call away and this is somebody either I'm circulating with them, scrubbed in, or, you know, we are effectively communicating as a team.

And you learn that this is collaboration, not a.

Not buzzword culture.

Right.

Not what sounds nice.

And we can put on a billboard to say we're one healthcare team.

Because I think, I think.

I think people need to understand when it comes to ir, because my first, my two years in radiology school, the first year I got all of my exams done, I went and did literally everything.

The two years I did it in one year because I knew my body could not do Portables and or for the next however many years I was going to have to work.

So I needed to figure out what other modality I wanted to do.

And so I used my second year to rotate through.

IR was the one that I thought I was going in.

I loved interventional.

And like you said, I think people need to understand like what is it that you do you have.

That's where I found out about radiology nurses.

Like you have nurses that are in there with you as you sedate the people they're responsible for sedating.

Because as a technologist working in interventional, like you say, you work closely with the radiologist.

It gives you a whole new perspective.

They're coming out of that reading room where it's dark and closed doors that we always go knock on the door to try to get them.

They're out there with us in the, in the room there, the sterile field.

You've all got to scrub in together.

Nurses, technologists, doctors, everybody scrubbed in together.

They rely on the technologist to draw up certain things, to put out certain needles to understand.

You know, like you said, liability is different levels.

The doctor is still the doctor, but they do heavily rely on the technologist.

As far as different, I guess French's or what that's what they call.

So yeah, it depends on what type of instruments you're talking about.

So when we talk about instrumentation, you know, technologist knows the where's and the where's and what, where things are.

And then as you start to elevate, they start, you know, tapped in, engaged technology starts to anticipate the doctor's move.

And so what IR does it challenges what your preconceived notions of your scope or practice are, what your expectations and what your talents are.

Because a lot of people confuse and stop their understanding of their scope of practice by the limitations set by the institution.

Yes, you have to follow those because you work for the institution.

But the institution does not define your scope of practice.

The institution defines your scope of practice in the role they employ you to operate in.

But not the same.

That's not.

It's not the same scope of practice that is established by your state licensure.

If you have a state license, by your national registry, which is the art, and your practice standards that are set by the asrt.

A lot of people don't even realize all of these things exist.

And when people are telling you that's not in your scope, nine times out of ten they're telling you something they don't know.

And you have plenty of references you can go to, and you'll tell them, I've done it before, and say, well, no, we don't do that here based on institutional policy, but here's my scope of practice, right?

You know, you thought it was here, but.

But then, you know.

And so those are things we have to be aware of as we talk about professionalism and truly being effective advocates.

You know, not beating somebody upside the head and trying to make them say, we're important, we're important, we're important.

But it's really defining and owning the narrative because we get discounted more often than not.

And the worst part about the discount we receive, I think the most impacting part of that discount is, from where I stand, sometimes it's more internal than it is externally driven.

We could tell we got a panel coming up on that, too.

I mean, it's so much.

We can talk.

So let's go out of the clinical role, because now you help the audience to see what you do in the interventional world, vascular world.

People wonder, how do I get those stents?

How do people get stents in me?

Well, interventional is one of those ways.

Open up blood flow, all kind of things.

It's such an important role.

But you also do applications.

When I was in school, I knew nothing about that.

No one ever talked to me about applications.

Technologist.

It never occurred to me that somebody had to put those protocols in a machine.

Someone had to teach you how to use this ge, this Phillips, or this Siemens, you know, so how did you get into applications?

And what is applications, man?

So that's awesome.

So, first and foremost, y'all gonna notice I always have a thesis statement before I answer the question.

One, because I talk too much, two, because I'm verbose, and three, because I really want to make sure I'm taking the opportunity to articulate, understand what you were taught to do.

As we were developing as radiographers, technologists, sonographers, therapists, we start to build and accumulate transferable skills.

And I say transferable skills like we're not defined to one procedure area, a service line, an exam, that we learn things along the way that allow us to deliver exceptional patient care beyond the realms of direct patient care, Even though that's important.

You have to know direct patient care to understand how to influence it, but to really get involved in the operations and the process of things that promote patient care and that become a little more distal than direct patient care and exams.

And so when I got into applications, I had been teaching for about two years at A university level.

Well, teaching full time.

Let me say I've been teaching full time because when I started teaching adjunct, I was still in the clinical direct patient care, right.

So when I got into apps, I was probably two years, about two years removed for, from IR clinically practicing.

And I got a call from somebody who had referred me still, they still.

I'm still trying to figure that out still to this day.

And the rest was history.

So I got in the application.

So I don't do software with the modalities, I do packs.

And so I'm dealing with the entire radiology department, any departments that are adjacent to imaging.

And so even though I do training on the application, I think the just of my job is understanding, communicating, collaborating clinical workflows, be it a nurse, be it a physician, be it a technologist, you know, among the modalities, whoever's accessing PACs and whatever platform they're using to make sure that we have efficient workflows in place and that all of those are working synergistically for that patient outcome when it comes to the role that medical imaging plays in overall patient care management and healthcare delivery.

And I think a lot of people missed the mark on that.

It's like there's not a service line we don't touch.

So be careful about letting people discount your value because imaging does not service is the service line that services service lines.

Let me say that.

And don't discount yourself either because I think sometimes we think, well, I know when I was in school and people were saying, well why are you rotating through all these modalities?

Just stick with X ray.

And it's like, well, I got X ray.

Why wouldn't I get more?

Why wouldn't I challenge myself to learn more?

Why wouldn't I challenge this?

This radiology field has so much to offer me.

Why would I just stop here?

You know, and it just didn't make sense to me.

And I saw several people that stay there now they're like, oh, I wish I would have done that.

Know, don't discount yourself as well.

It's out there for everyone to be able to get and you can be good at it.

It's, it's.

I think sometimes I would run into where people would say it's too hard.

It's like it goes back to everything else.

It's all in what you, you know, what you make up.

So there's nothing too hard out there.

I completely agree.

And I think with that, my, my advisement with that is always the same.

Whatever your end Goal is, if it's to be the best technologies and you just want to work days, I don't think anything is wrong.

And I, and I had to have a conversation with somebody about that, like, well, they should want more.

It's like, everybody doesn't want to be the director.

Everybody doesn't want to be outside.

I said, and that's totally fine.

I said, but make sure you own that narrative.

And you're not choosing to be somewhere because you are stuck.

Right.

Because that's a, That's a totally different thing.

And so I tell people all the time, and you.

You'll learn.

I joke.

I can.

I can I coin a phrase?

In a minute.

It's just the way I talk, in the way my mind works.

You know, take pride in your modality, but take purpose in your profession.

You.

You said what that looks like for you.

But don't.

Don't get in so many silos and say, well, you know, I do X ray.

I don't do nuclear medicine.

That has nothing to do with me.

That has everything.

Yeah.

To do with you.

You know, because you're not the person specializing there.

You're that support system.

You have an opportunity to cheerlead their champion, to let.

To inform people when they ask, you know, stop allowing people to say, oh, you do X ray.

I don't do X ray.

You know, I do X, Y and Z.

Like, no, no, I'm not telling you teach the people KVP or anything like that.

But we have to really take.

Take a moment and describe the people, what it is that we do.

Because think about it.

When you stay next door to a doctor or a nurse, you know, you stayed next door to a doctor or nurse, and people have to identify that, no, we're not a.

We're not Bigfoot.

We're not a creature you hear about and doesn't exist.

Now, mind you, I also think that the most ideal time to talk about who we are is not in a procedure room because that person is.

Is anxious about results.

They're not.

They're not really hearing that.

But when you are running these marathons that you run, when you go into soccer with your children, when you.

At church, at the grocery store, you having functions, and people are asking, no, what is it that you do?

I'm a medical imaging professional.

What does that mean?

Well, then let me tell you.

And then intentionally, you know, start relaying that message.

Like, think about it.

If the people that you're the closest to, let's say the people who live in your house.

Mm.

Ask yourself three questions.

Have I ever had a meaningful conversation with them about what I do?

If somebody asked them what I do, what would they answer?

And if they had to explain to somebody what I do.

Because if we're missing our mark with the people that we, that we, we reside with.

Oh, we've, we're for sure missing our mark with everybody else, you know, with everybody else.

And I think sometimes people might take offense that.

And it's not beating someone over the head, but it's really taking the opportunity to say, this is who we are, this is what we do.

And when other professionals, people, healthcare systems, you know, choose to, you know, choose to discount or deny our value, we have to choose to be ignored.

I mean that, like, I mean that, like, to a degree, like, what does resilience look like for us?

Like, how are we really showing up?

So expound on that a little bit.

Expound on that a little bit more.

I think a lot of the times the mark has been missed because we're not articulating, mind you.

We've been around and we go based on Rankin's discovery, you know, more than, you know, more than a century.

Yeah.

You know, we talk about mark.

How would you say we're missing our mark?

Because, like, are we really having that conversation?

Like, are we singing to the choir more often than we are going out and truly doing outreach and doing intentional exposure?

And are we doing that?

Like, are we, when we're showing up places?

You know, like, since I've been on the advocacy kick, I built relationships.

I go to high schools, I go to two year and four year institutions depending on my relationships, and I want to talk to the people entering, you know, more importantly, you want to talk to people in secondary school.

Right.

Because sometimes college, you already kind of have an idea and then some people don't.

But when you start planting seeds, like, early, early, you know, like, my sons probably won't go into medical imaging because I probably act like my dad.

And it's like, but my dad and I had to have that conversation too.

And I don't say this to.

He's like, I'll bring.

Put me on spot.

We didn't talk about what he did growing up.

And I grew up around Connecticut machines, MRI machines in a dark room and looking at these cross sectional images, like, oh, daddy, I don't see how you.

Like, what is that?

And he's like, that's a brain.

I was like, I don't see a brain.

Right.

You know, and then, and then I go my own route.

And then I decide, you know, mid halfway, almost finished with my college career is like, I don't want to do what it is I'm doing.

I think I'm a switch to imagine.

And because some, some people ask, why didn't you go into initially, I was like, I mean, it's the, it's the typical father son story.

Like, I don't want to do what you do.

I'm going to do my own thing, you know, But I've always been aware of imaging.

But then you think about it, the conversation is the same.

You even said it in your story.

A lot of times this has not been an option because there was not an awareness.

So we know there's not an awareness.

How do we change that narrative?

And we cannot limit that promotion to hospital walls and procedure rooms.

And that's where that synergy comes into play.

There is no separation, in my opinion, in between the person and the professional.

I said that in many times, in many interviews and many presentations, if the pandemic taught me nothing else.

Regardless of how you believe in it, you know, from a healthcare standpoint, from political standpoint, I don't get into all of that.

It showed that there is no separation in between the person and the professional.

As a professional, you are a person.

As a person, I would hope you are a professional.

You know, you're not working towards that.

And that's what I like about the asrt.

Like I was telling you, you know, I just, my husband has always been a member from the day one when he got out of school.

And he, you know, so we are both members now and I'm taking full advantage of it and learning more of how it can benefit me as a professional.

And, you know, so our outlook on it is different, but mine is.

I love what you said, how you reach back, because that's what I have several friends whose children didn't want to go to a four year college, but their parents are like, you're going to school for something.

Go talk to Chandria about radiology because she works a very flexible schedule and she and her husband travel all the time.

So whatever she's doing, I need you to go talk to her.

And I have friends who, you know, now their kids are growing, they have families and they do radiology, all because of the conversations that I had with them.

You know, I laid everything out for them that this is, you have to work.

Why not do something that you would enjoy, Give you flexibility to even do the things that are hobbies.

And that's one direction I go with young people is, you know, four year college, a year college is not meant for everyone.

But think of what you could do in two years and maybe an extra year depending on when, you know, when I was in it, they didn't have a lot of schools, if any.

We didn't have any MRI schools.

So now you have to go to school for it.

We just learned on a job and read a book and took the test and learned that way.

But, you know, there's so many opportunities in radiology for young ones, radiation therapy.

I mean, I have seen so many people that I know go into that.

And I remember there was one school and they took like eight people every two years or something.

You know, it's really hard to get into it.

So to see a lot of my colleagues in radiation therapy making six figures, having a balanced lifestyle because they make enough money, their children are in good schools, you know, they have a good life, you know, because of the career choice they made that a lot of people don't know about.

So when it comes to the asrt, could you briefly tell us, you know, what is the role of the asrt?

We talked about the arrt, but the asrt, because I think more people in the radiology field should understand it from a different perspective of just getting your CE credits, a place where you can take a one CE credits, you know, And I think just being honest, that's where the average technologist, that's what they envision or know of the ASRT is.

That's where I go to get my credits.

Because that's what I was told when I got out of school.

I was in school.

This is where you get your credits.

But I believe the SRT has a stronger role and can help become.

Help more technologies become more professional and give our modality a different, you know, a different look.

So I'll say.

So I'll say this.

It may.

So that is usually the message and the thing, you know, well, yeah, I can get my seeds cheaper.

And so let me, let me be completely clear.

There are more than 350,000 registered technologists and therapists in the U.S.

we represent the third largest healthcare profession in the U.S.

only second to physicians and nurses.

Well, third to physicians and nurses.

Sorry.

The ASRT has about 157,000 members, so a little less than half of registered technologies.

I went in my service, the people that I work alongside.

The ASRT, regardless of membership, represents 350,000 technologies.

You know why?

Because the work that's done by the ASRT is not biased to a membership.

You will never hear me have a conversation about pushing membership to the asrt, but there will be a conversation about accountability.

Because you want me to communicate with you.

Yeah, I don't have your contact information, you know, and so what the ASRT does is, you know, if I'm going off the mission, it, you know, it says, wants to be premier provider for medical imaging and radiation therapy through education, through professionalism, through innovation, through leadership and to make sure, you know that, you know, in our vision that we are promoting, you know, professionalism, uplifting the profession and promoting patient safety and quality healthcare delivery.

So great.

So what does that mean, Brandon?

It's just everybody says that.

Okay, so what's going on at the ASRT is when you are encouraging, we are working for you, when you are discouraging, we are working for you.

When you believe in what we do, we are working for you when you do not believe, we are working for you, when you know our value is seen or we're discounted, we are working for the same people who do both.

That is non biased.

And people say, oh man, that's so commendable.

No, it's not.

Because sometimes it's difficult.

I'm going to be honest with you.

Sometimes it's difficult to invest your time and talents in somebody theoretically, you know, will spit on what you do.

Right.

But what they don't see is the mother that's running from meeting to meeting, volunteering her time away from her job, who is trying to balance being a professional, being an advocate and being a mother being a person.

Let's talk about self care too.

And being a person who, you know, we may go to a board meeting and you know, you have a board member who's trying to fly back just to see her, his or her son before they're deployed.

Right.

Or a board member who spouse is not used to them not being home as frequently and learning a new normal to function, or the grandparent who's away from the grandchildren or you know, all these things that it's not a loss of time, it's an investment in time to make sure things happen.

And you have to look at the people who you love, who might not understand what you do professionally and make them understand that the time that you feel like I'm taking away from you, I'm investing one in a profession that if something happens to you and you need diagnostic, interventional or therapeutic care, the medical imaging professional or therapist who's treating you has benefited from, from people showing up and advocating for who we are and what we do.

Two, if you decide to enter this field, that this field is continuously growing and getting to a point that it has something to offer you for the long term.

And I think when we start talking about growth, you know, as an organization and they have to be a reminder of as we continue to grow, we continue to appreciate what was, take advantage of what is and plan for what's coming.

There's a lot of advocacy that goes on with the air too when we start talking about actual things going on.

Legislation.

See, we get caught up in legislative efforts that are red flags and go, oh, that's a major thing.

But don't realize there oftentimes 17 things going on at the same time that you're totally unaware of that affect different modalities.

You have legislation out about mammography and screenings, legislation out about the use of radionuclides and innovative nuclear medicine procedures.

You have the Healthcare Workers act that protects healthcare workers against violence in places like the ER and the rise in violence.

Covid and the things going on.

You have act about osteoporosis and bone density.

When we talk about having radiation protection and safety laws that standards set that is not fully implemented today because we're still fighting to have licensure in all states.

I could go down.

I could.

Oh yeah, Georgia.

Yeah.

And I'll be.

I ran a poll not long ago asking how your last X ray was it done by X ray technologist?

That was Some people like what?

I never thought about that.

You know, people don't know that.

I remember managing a urology office and that was really.

I was like two years out of school.

And that's when I realized I did their radiation safety where I realized that medical assistants were taking X rays and I had to educate them on how to.

It was like having X ray school.

And it was scary.

I'm just going to leave it there.

It was scary at some of the X rays that were being taken on people could, you know, and some of the radiation they were getting.

So to the asrt.

I mean, hats off.

I don't.

In my opinion, I would love to see more technologists fully understand the role of the asrt because I think once we're educated and we want to be professionals, we want to support.

We want to benefit from it.

We can all work together and, you know, support one another, you know, support the hard work that you guys are doing.

Because you just opened up my eyes to a lot of things that I never knew and didn't never thought about.

And frankly, I just didn't know.

So thank you for that.

And I think more of our audience, when they see this and hear this, will understand this is what the ASRT does.

And the Foundation.

The ASRT foundation gives out hundreds of thousands of dollars every year aimed at the development of students, the development of professionals, disaster relief, all kind of things that are going on.

And so when we talk about paying a membership or premium membership, anywhere from $125 annually to 100, see, I might pay 160 because some are $140, because chapters I'm not going to get in logistics.

If you think somebody is charging you $125 for continuing education units and that's the only benefit you're getting, my first question to you is, have you had that conversation with somebody?

My second question is if you've had that conversation, because the conversation is an exchange of ideas.

So that means that I'm talking and I'm listening and you're talking and you're listening.

Because if you coming in and your ears are already closed or your external acoustic meaties.

That's me being that.

That's me being that I'm corny.

Y'all.

Right.

No, it's so funny.

When you said it, I said, that.

Sounds like something us medical folks, you know, it's blocked.

Then where are we getting to?

It is so easy.

It is so easy to criticize and despise a mirror's reflection.

Yeah.

Without taking that time.

And ask yourself, honestly, God, ask yourself if the ASRT are professional organization is not doing what they should do for me.

Am I doing what I need?

What I should be doing for me?

And I'm not.

And I'm not taking away because there's accountability there.

I'm accountability for your dissatisfaction even when you're not showing up for yourself.

That's how.

That's how we work.

It's not.

People confuse and they love to use that radiographic marker of fair.

That marker don't work here.

Yeah, it doesn't work because it's not about fair.

It's about when you start to volunteer, when you start to show up.

We sign up for different levels of accountability and fair goals out the window.

Yeah.

I lose my privilege to have an opinion because I have to champion your purpose.

You can tell me whatever you want to tell me.

I can't respond to you in that way.

And then when we.

When we start to really grow, our ego starts to shrink because what we're measuring our performance by is service.

And so I have to take all the feedback you give, good, bad, indifferent.

I'm not doing anything in my time.

I'm sitting on my laurels.

We eat caviar, we drink wine, all this, you know, I'm laughing like, where did, well, show me the footage.

Where was, yeah, you know, we do, we do appreciate, I'll tell you, my appreciation for what you have said, I think is going to speak volumes to many more people because it did for me.

And even if someone takes one thing away, you know, that one, whatever, that one thing you guys take away from this, you know, our mission is that our field of radiology, that we become professionals, number one.

And the way you present yourself and you, you act and you show up is usually how people treat you, whether they like you or not.

You know, so how we show up, you know, if you have a job and you're late all the time, but you're a great worker, people probably aren't going to keep you.

It doesn't matter how good of a worker you are, you're late all the time, you're costing the money.

So that's the same thing in life.

You know, if you present yourself well, whether people like you or not, you know, they will understand you're presenting and that's professionalism.

They'll take notice and say, now it's 20 years she's been saying she does, she's not a nurse, she's an X ray tech, you know, she does.

Mr.

And then I think that's the same with the ASRT, you know, as people are educated and it may take time for some others, but I could, I love the way the ASRT is presenting things and social media has become our friend now.

So I think over the years we're going to see more.

So I want to end this out because this is, we got so much more we could talk about in a limited time.

But can I ask one thing to your, to the listeners, by no means do I want anybody to think that I see things in rose colored glasses and there's not an opportunity for improvement.

But before you find yourself disappointed, right, at least give your sitting representatives, be your chapter delegate, be your officers, the opportunity to disappoint you before you declare yourself disappointed, connect with somebody, have an experience, not your friend's experience.

And if you had an experience 25 years ago, maybe we up for a renewal and give me an opportunity to give you a different experience.

But before you write it off, and I'm not talking about membership, I don't care, somebody going Keeping say, Brandon, you shouldn't say that.

I would like for you to be.

No, I know what you mean though, right.

I would like for you to be a member, but not if it is reluctant in your dissatisfaction.

Find a reason there.

But we're gonna work for you regardless.

That's not contingent on the work that we do.

But I'll go back to say connect to it, Connect with somebody, connect with me, hold me accountable.

But make sure that the same expectations you hold for another are reasonable in comparison to the expectations you hold for yourself.

Well, you said a mouthful there.

And you said too, how I just know the free resources I got from the SRT before I became a member.

So that says a lot to me.

And then what you said earlier was, you know, connect.

Connect with people and get a new experience.

We all evolve and we grow in life and we change.

You know, I mean, for me, I'm a different person than I was 20 years ago.

So I'm going to see it differently.

I'm going to take advantage of different things.

That's just how life goes.

But I love how early you talked about going back, reaching back to high schoolers.

So I want to end up and say, what advice would you give to young men and women who want to look into the medical field but they don't want to go to be a doctor or a nurse?

Medical imaging and radiation therapy is not a contingency plan.

It is not a profession that you get into because you didn't make it somewhere else.

There is such a misconception that medical imaging and radiation therapy are not competitive.

And they are just as competitive, if not more competitive, and they're also very lucrative.

And so as the fields continue to climb and strive, understand that I am not an ally to healthcare.

I don't work in allied health, as they like to determine.

I do direct patient care.

And so this is one of those things that if you want to do direct patient care, if you want to utilize your talents by using what you know about patient care through technology, physics, anatomy, pharmacology, biology, radiation, then come here.

This is what we have for you.

We are specialists that specialize.

We are not.

I am.

I'm a button pusher.

And so people say, well, that's rude to say, I am a button pusher, but if I change all these parameters and you press the same button I push, I guarantee you won't produce the same image I produce.

So, yes, I am a budding pusher.

But understand that I set the tone for what happens when the button is Pressed.

I have.

Okay.

I got my sound bite for this podcast when I do, because I have never thought of it that way, but you explained it and you gave it in a way that really helps people to understand.

I mean, you brought down pharmacology, physics, and I mean, that was perfect in a perfect way that I'm going to end this.

I have nothing else to say after that.

That drove the nail into the wood for me because I do know that some technologies get really, you know, I push buttons.

I love how you said that.

But also determine how the image is going to come out.

But nobody wants to talk about the precursor.

You action.

I do press button, but I also set the parameters that dictate how the button, what.

What happens after the button is pressed.

So don't wait.

Yeah, I cannot wait to have you back on the panel.

We're doing a panel of different.

One modality of each person, and we are going to have a nice little panel discussion with topics, and I would love to have you back for that.

This has been such, such a great conversation.

I love your candidness.

I love you down to earthness and your knowledge of the field.

And I think people can relate to that.

And we're on the same wavelength that we want radiology to be, you know, noticed correctly.

And as a profession.

This is a profession, not a backup career.

Not something where you failed at PA school or something else.

And you came into radiology.

We are very smart and intelligent, hardworking people.

We make good money.

This is a truth.

I mean that.

Because that's what ultimately people want to know.

It's like, you know, I never forget when I was still teaching at the college, somebody said, we're interviewing a student.

Sweet Jesus.

The students say, okay, so what brings you to radiology?

Radiography.

He says, well, you know, I thought, I want to do something in healthcare, but I don't want to do direct patient care.

I said, hey, y'all, I'm good.

I said, let's talk about that.

And so then you start to have conversations, but you have to.

You have to set the tone.

And if you notice, you're going to see my introduction going to be the same every time.

The most important thing I'm going to tell you about me throughout this whole thing is my name is Brandon.

All these letters and alphabets don't mean anything if I don't put meaning to them now, mind you.

Yes, they mean I did something right.

I empower them.

They don't empower me.

Right.

And so then we start talking about what we do.

You know, a lot of times, you know, people think we get in these positions.

Oh, you know, oh, you just doing it for you.

I don't need anything for my resume.

I'm telling you, I am here to a point that sometimes I laugh and tell some of my friends, I said, my children at times probably will have daddy issues.

Like, daddy, you were gone a lot of times.

But I wasn't not doing anything right.

And I tell my wife the same thing.

My wife is a nurse.

Oh, okay.

She's actually a nurse.

She's in imaging leadership.

And so because at first when she first got in the.

The imaging realm, she was like, oh, this.

Didn't that go.

I said, let me hold.

Let me stop, honey, let me stop you.

I said, you feel that way because you're used to walking into any and every service line and being the center of attention.

You are in an imaging department.

Yeah, here, ma'am, you're ancillary.

But we appreciate you for being an ally and being here.

I see only you could say that to her, but I want to.

I want to thank you so much, Brandon, for coming and agreeing to do this.

And congratulations.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

We gotta.

We can't wait to hear how everything goes and the big celebration you're gonna have in June, I'm sure.

Oh, my.

And thank you, everyone, for listening to Less Chit Chat, Wellness and Travel, our radiology series.

We are so excited again to have Brandon A.

Smith.

You guys, if you are able to follow Brandon on LinkedIn, I will put his link inside of the description and also at the bottom of this podcast if you're watching it again.

Thank you.

Be sure to subscribe and drop us a review.

And thank you again.

Have a great day, everyone.

Thank you.