Medical Imagining?

Question

I'm a freshman in college and desparetly looking for a major. I was looking at majors and my school offers medical imaging i understand this would be x-rays, ct scans ect. I like that its only two years of class work and two years of clinical a lot. I was just wondering if anyone worked in this field and could give me some info about it (pro and cons, salary and so on) I looked at the occupational outlook hand book thing already but i want a more personal view please.

Answer 1

I work in Radiology. I'm a CT technologist. yes, it's one of the highest paying jobs for a 2 yr degree. after you graduate as an xray tech, you can cross train to nuclear medicine (more school), ultrasound (sometimes more school), MRI, CT, Mammography, Interventional (angiograms and stuff like that). I had a traveling job that I had assignments at different hospitals for short-term contracts. I went to some great places and got paid awesome (about 70K). Since I've got married and stopped traveling. A big paycut, but I had enough quality experience to land a manager job. Its tough to go wrong in radiology. Do it.

Answer 2

Pros & cons: it is physically demanding; we have to deal with things like barium enemas, traumas, smelly people/all types of bodily fluids and secretions, screaming children, etc. It can be incredibly stressful one minute and boring the next. But it's also interesting and I enjoy it.

Pay varies a lot depending on the area of the country. You can find salary info here: http://www.asrt.org/content/rts/surveyresults/wageandsalarysurvey/wagesalsurvey2007.aspx

FYI: Requirements might change in the future, but as of right now, you don't need a degree... it doesn't make you a better tech than someone that went through a hospital program in 2 years and earned a certificate. You can find accredited schools here: http://arrt.org/index.html?content=http://www.arrt.org/nd/listOfSchools.ndm/listSchools&iframe=yes

Email me if you have any more questions.