Radiology is one of the fastest-growing areas in medicine, and while many people are interested in becoming a radiology technician, getting started can require some adjustment. Any career involves more than first meets the eye, and healthcare is no exception. Read below for five lessons you learn when you become a radiology technician.

1. You are a Helping Person

This may seem obvious at first glance. If you thought about getting into healthcare, your attraction was probably to help people. After all, that is what the medical field is for! Radiology is no exception. A technician helps their patients through providing high-quality images that assist in medical diagnoses, but there are so many more aspects to the care they provide. Understanding pain management and experience in working with people in distress can be a tremendous benefit to a new technician. In your everyday work, you may deal with elderly patients or young children, some of whom may be in tremendous pain while you provide your services. You will learn how to handle these situations easily as you begin work in the field.

This can put you in a difficult situation. While many patients may have questions about what is happening, what your scans are looking for, or even broader elements of the medical process; a radiology technician does not interpret results or make diagnoses.  As a result, your ability to talk to your patients becomes key. You will have to balance making a patient feel comfortable and confident in the process while respecting the limits of your skill set.

2. Privacy is Key

As the medical field has expanded the amount of information it gathers for every patient, concerns about keeping that data private have kept pace. HIPAA laws regulate the management of this data, ensuring every aspect of a patient's privacy is protected. In your first months on the job, you will probably get a lot of practice ensuring that you keep all information about your patients private and in accordance with the law. These requirements can range from filing all paperwork in specific manners, to ensuring old records are disposed of carefully, to being mindful of how you talk about work. An accidental breach of privacy can have serious consequences.

3. There's More than Meets the Eye

On first glance, radiology is a field devoted to scanning patients, but in practice there are far more duties involved. These can include every part of working with a patient-the specifics will vary from office to office. In some cases you will need to gather patient data and bring them into your office's systems. Other cases may require you to maintain areas of your working environment, cleaning and stocking supplies as needed. Whatever the case in your office, you can certainly expect to be flexible. Every day may bring new tasks into your life, a comfortable break in your working routine.

4. The Field is Changing

Radiology is one of the most dynamic fields in medicine. As new technologies are developed, technicians need to keep themselves up-to-date on advancements in the field. Diagnosing with multiple tools has become one of the largest trends. In the past, a single person might only be expected to be trained in performing and calibrating x-rays or MRI scans; now it is commonplace for one technician to work across a wide variety of different equipment and techniques.

5. You are in Demand

Perhaps one of the most welcome lessons you can learn after becoming a radiology technician is the high demand for your skills. As a field, radiology is expected to show rapid growth, with job opportunities growing an average of 9% between 2014 and 2024, generating almost 21,000 new jobs according to Bureau of Labor statistics. Couple this with a median salary of $57,370 per year, also according to the Bureau of Labor, and the prospects for a career in radiology look very strong.

If these sound like lessons you would like to learn, contact ECPI today for information on earning your Associate of Applied Science in Medial Radiography. With our year-round schedule and accelerated courses, you could earn your degree in as little as 18 months! Contact ECPI today—it could be the Best Decision You Ever Make!

She went to ECPI to be an x-ray tech, now she's making mad money working at Sentara.

— Scott (@lucky_sal) April 21, 2012

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