Video Transcript

Host:
Question: Let’s say I myself am considering becoming an X-ray tech. And I asked you for one specific thing I should know about the career before I make that decision. What would you say? What’s your one piece of either advice or specific thing you think I need to make the decision to go and pursue being an X-ray tech?

Jennifer:
Answer: I think I would definitely make it known that you might not be able to get into a full time position right away. There’s definitely has been times I in history where X-ray tech field has been completely dry and they’re like begging for people to come on. But sometimes that’s just not the case. You might have to take a shift to say, if you need a full time job, you might have to work that like non-covid shift of working third shift. So that’s definitely big. And for a few years, like probably from 2020, just up until recently, they were having a hard time getting people. I feel like it’s kind of starting to evened out a little bit.

Farrel:
Answer: Well, you got to be OK with getting personal with your patients when you are in diagnostic X-ray and you’re, like funneling patients through the door. Chest X-ray after chest X-ray. And you’re just like, bam, bam, dun dun. What’s your symptoms? It’s way more personal patient care experience when you’re talking about mammography, which is why I liked it. I like to get to know my patients a little bit, but you have to be OK. You’re touching sensitive areas. So first of all, you got to be OK with that. And you have to have a way with people to make them feel comfortable in something that is uncomfortable. So you have to have that expectation that you’re going to be taking a little bit more time with your patients and getting to know them a little bit more.

Jenna:
Answer: So from a female standpoint, obviously when you’re pregnant, you can’t be around ionizing radiation. So this field does use ionizing radiation to produce these diagnostic medical images. We do have shields that we can wear their like shields so they protect us. But we do still, over our lifetime in this career, accumulate a dose of radiation. So while you are pregnant, you have to further reduce that dose or avoid that dose, and that can affect your career and working during pregnancy. So I would say if you’re a female that’s about to enter the field, that’s something to be mindful of. There is always other imaging modality choices that don’t use ionizing radiation, so X-ray is still a great starting point, and then you can always become a dual modality technologist, so that wouldn’t even be a problem. Obviously, you know, males need to be mindful of their radiation dose as well. But I guess for females, that’s something to keep in mind.