Would you like to be an X-ray Technician? To get started you need to find a college or technical school that offers the coursework. You will be able to have an accredited certificate or an associate degree in about 2 years. The education is required by the federal government because of safety standards on radiation exposure. You could also get the formal training and a certificate through a hospital. In addition, almost every state will require for you to get a license to practice but each state will have its own licensing requirements.
Some of the courses you will encounter will be anatomy, physiology, radiation physics, medical terminology, positioning of patients, radiobiology, and pathology. If you would like to advance in the field of radiography, you might want to have a background in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology. Advancement might mean that you would have to go into more areas of diagnostic imaging like CT scanning, magnetic resonance, or mammography. You could go from being a technician to a radiologic technologist and then on to become a radiologic specialist.
To be a good X-ray Technician you have to pay close attention to the patient’s needs while carefully following the physician’s orders. You need to be detail oriented, mechanically able, and have good manual dexterity.
There are a lot of jobs available for X-ray Technicians. And most of those jobs (about 60% of them) are in hospitals. The other 40% of the jobs are in doctor’s offices, dental offices, diagnostic imaging centers, outpatient care centers, or medical and diagnostic laboratories. As a radiologic technologist you could have the potential to earn more than $74,000 per year. The median income for a radiologic technologist at a medical and diagnostic laboratory is about $55,000 per year. Apparently the highest paid radiologic technologists work at these medical and diagnostic laboratories.
So what exactly will the job involve? You, the X-ray Technician, will position the area of the body that needs the x-ray under the machine. The machine will then need to be positioned at the right angle and at the right height as per the physician’s instructions and any necessary lead shielding will be put in place. When the patient is prepared you will go behind a lead barrier wall or enclosure to adjust the equipment. And just about everyone has at some time had to have an x-ray for one reason or another. So likely, you are somewhat familiar with the patient viewpoint. You may remember how the particular part of your body was positioned and the lead shielding to protect certain parts of your body. Perhaps you remember the lead apron of the X-ray Tech and how that person went behind a particular wall to adjust the controls of the machinery. You may have wondered why it was so important for the X-ray Technician to be behind the wall or in the little room while you were being completely exposed to whatever radiation was in the room. This is because the X-ray Tech is exposed to more radiation over long periods of time while the patient will only be there briefly. So the extra protection is truly a necessity for the X-ray Tech.
It should be noted that as an X-ray Technician your job is to take the x-rays or pictures of the inside of a person’s body. It is not your job to interpret the results of those pictures. The radiologist or the physician should be the one to discuss the results with the patient.
