it IS as bad as..

it has been said to be. I myself am a registered x-ray tech with a job and I know how lucky I am. Pay attention and the people with jobs and REAL WORLD experience will tell you how it is. Please note the following reasons to not get into x-ray:

1.) Too many schools
-yeah!!! lets graduate 75...no...100 students per actual existing position!! that can't create a problem right?

2.) The market is NOT turning around!!!
-To all you geniuses in x-ray school right now who think the job market will turn around in a year or two, well there must not be a two - five year waiting list of students behind you now right? Those waiting lists of students that are years and years long will guarantee this never changes.

3.) This is NOT because of the economy!!!
-This started before the depression America is in. It will be going on far after.

There is so much more, I could go on all day. I still remember what my hiring manager said when I got my job. This guy is a manager of radiology in one of the biggest hospitals in the US and has been in charge for 20+ years and said HE has never seen it this bad.

If your looking into radiology or are currently a student I'm warning you once again now as many others have before. I'm sure people who actually know whats going on will agree.

lets not forget:

4.) The advent of DR technology
-These systems work much faster than CR and what does that mean for x-ray techs? that's right our jobs will be able to be done more quickly and that means more exams will be done by the lucky employed. jobs that would have existed with CR films are erased. Even technology is against you if you decide to become an x-ray tech.

Your right it is bad I'm a graduate from April and I had to go back into Medical Assisting for a job. Why can't the schools recognize that it is going to hurt the economy even more if they keep doing this because how are these graduates going to pay back there student loans. Next big thing besides the housing going down hill it will be student loans not being paid back!!!!Then what next after that!!!! We need to get this out and circulating so people know not to get into the field.

Sharon Tuten in Melbourne, Florida said: Your right it is bad I'm a graduate from April and I had to go back into Medical Assisting for a job. Why can't the schools recognize that it is going to hurt the economy even more if they keep doing this because how are these graduates going to pay back there student loans. Next big thing besides the housing going down hill it will be student loans not being paid back!!!!Then what next after that!!!! We need to get this out and circulating so people know not to get into the field.

The schools don't care. They are only about money. The ARRT does not care, the more registered techs, the more cash in their pockets.

This will not stop. I am sorry for your misfortune, as you were most likely fed a steady diet of lies about job availability throughout school, but make no mistake, nothing we are going to do is going to make this any better...

here is a best case scenario...

The economy recovers, people begin landing non-radiology jobs. This will stop some people from applying to tech school, but consider this, there are still years-long waiting lists to several places and many of those people on those lists are going to want the program they waited for. The schools will meanwhile keep spreading the lies open jobs.

-Slowly, little by little enrollment will hopefully drop but it is too late for that NOW, let alone then.

-The overflow of techs will continue to leave this nightmarishly flooded field for at least the next 10 years in the best case. Gosh I hope that technology doesn't find a way to improve in that time thus eliminating the jobs of even more x-ray people.

What I'm trying to say is there is no best case here. The schools got way to many people going through now and for the next 5+ years. Technology will eliminate the need for us. Pray that the basic operator tech license doesn't become much more popular. Jobs created will in no way shape or form keep up with students produced or the 7 out of 10 unemployed graduates of now.

If your smart, you'll get out of this ASAP.

just wanted to thank you for the heads up[memo] ooh and i know this might sound gay[my apologies for those who are]. but, if i was an RT student? i would have loved to have you as a teacher ^ ^ you know, it definitely seems dark through out the med. field. but,like you said? "keep applying". who knows eh? you just might get lucky alot sooner, than later ^ ^ *g00d luck everyone!!!*

the point is that you shouldn't have to get insanely lucky to get a job. you shouldn't be lied to about job availability by schools. The massive overflow of students should not exist.

I would be fired if I were a teacher cause I would do something they aren't allowed to....

TELL THE TRUTH.

So true cleveland it is not only xray that is flooded I am a radiation therapist and the jobs outlook in our field is no better. The reason is the schools putting out way too many students than jobs. We have students rotating through our center and they teel that their instructor tells them that there are still jobs out there but what they aren;t telling them is that for every one position there are at least 50 applicants. And they try to blame the economy too but that is bull these filds started tghtening up back in 06 and 07 and it has reached the over saturation point.

It's apparent that you all haven't been around all that long.

Apart from the current recession, our profession has always been cyclical. Here's how the scenario works.

Media trumpets the news that the population is aging and that the need for healthcare professions far outstrips the potential workforce. Prospective students with dollar-signs in their eyes flock to radiography programs leading to multi-year waiting lists. Current radiography programs answer that need by expanding their enrollment to include more students and new programs (same dollar signs) open - some motivated by a need to address the healthcare needs of an aging population and others by $$ (just like students).

Fast forward several years, and all those thousands of students have graduated/are graduating - all feeling 'entitled' to a job. A tighter economy and restrictions in reimbursements from the insurance industry prevented hospitals/clinics from expanding to the expected degree.

But this is not news.

This exact process has been happening every eight-ten years for the thirty years I've been an RT.

I'm sorry that experienced and graduate RT's are out of work. But imaging is not a dying profession, radiography is still a vibrant and necessary field.

If you entered Radiography with the promise of high wages after "only" two years of school? Looks like the bubble has burst. If you entered Radiography to make a difference and put patients first? Stick it out. Recovery will take longer - the current recession has crippled every industry and healthcare is not immune.

Good luck

Heather, your comments are absolutely Right On! I worked as a radiologic technologist for approx. 34 years (including ultrasound, Ct, and mammography), and have been teaching for the past 7 or 8 years. I was a manager through two of the "droughts" where you couldn't find a tech if your life depended on it.

Entry-level jobs may be a bit hard to come by this year, but medicine is not going to go away. The Baby Boomers lost half of their retirement money and are slowly trying to re-build, but they aren't going to hang around forever. And as soon as they start retiring, there will be anouther "drought".

Someone will have to care for all of those retired boomers............ medicine may change its structure, but it's not going away. There will always be a need for technologists.

Heather, your comments are absolutely Right On! I worked as a radiologic technologist for approx. 34 years (including ultrasound, Ct, and mammography), and have been teaching for the past 7 or 8 years. I was a manager through two of the "droughts" where you couldn't find a tech if your life depended on it.

Entry-level jobs may be a bit hard to come by this year, but medicine is not going to go away. The Baby Boomers lost half of their retirement money and are slowly trying to re-build, but they aren't going to hang around forever. And as soon as they start retiring, there will be anouther "drought".

Someone will have to care for all of those retired boomers............ medicine may change its structure, but it's not going away. There will always be a need for technologists.

Nan in Grangeville, ID in Genesee, Idaho said: Heather, your comments are absolutely Right On! I worked as a radiologic technologist for approx. 34 years (including ultrasound, Ct, and mammography), and have been teaching for the past 7 or 8 years. I was a manager through two of the "droughts" where you couldn't find a tech if your life depended on it.

Entry-level jobs may be a bit hard to come by this year, but medicine is not going to go away. The Baby Boomers lost half of their retirement money and are slowly trying to re-build, but they aren't going to hang around forever. And as soon as they start retiring, there will be anouther "drought".

Someone will have to care for all of those retired boomers............ medicine may change its structure, but it's not going away. There will always be a need for technologists.[/QUOTE

I'm working toward entering the field not for the money but to actually do something I'm passionate about. I'm mid-thirties and figure I have at least another 20 years of work ahead of me so I've decided to go back to school and do something I'm actuall interested in after 15 years of property management. My question to you is; how do you get the experience that everyone is saying is required while your in the program? Does it help to put in volunteer hours or get any type of job in the hospital to start the relationship? How would someone like me who has no medical background gain experience that will help my chances of getting a job when I graduate?
Also- is the job outlook as grim as everyone here is saying it is?

Heather in New Haven, Connecticut said: It's apparent that you all haven't been around all that long.

Apart from the current recession, our profession has always been cyclical. Here's how the scenario works.

Media trumpets the news that the population is aging and that the need for healthcare professions far outstrips the potential workforce. Prospective students with dollar-signs in their eyes flock to radiography programs leading to multi-year waiting lists. Current radiography programs answer that need by expanding their enrollment to include more students and new programs (same dollar signs) open - some motivated by a need to address the healthcare needs of an aging population and others by $$ (just like students).

Fast forward several years, and all those thousands of students have graduated/are graduating - all feeling 'entitled' to a job. A tighter economy and restrictions in reimbursements from the insurance industry prevented hospitals/clinics from expanding to the expected degree.

This exact process has been happening every eight-ten years for the thirty years I've been an RT.

I'm sorry that experienced and graduate RT's are out of work. But imaging is not a dying profession, radiography is still a vibrant and necessary field.

If you entered Radiography with the promise of high wages after "only" two years of school? Looks like the bubble has burst. If you entered Radiography to make a difference and put patients first? Stick it out. Recovery will take longer - the current recession has crippled every industry and healthcare is not immune.

Heather you are absolutely incorrect. I've been a tech for 20+yrs and I've never seen this field have any sort of cycle. For my entire career I've been able to find any job I wanted wherever I've wanted to go. I was in on the ground floor of MRI in my area.

If you could please point out the specific periods of time for these cycles I'd really to hear about them.

DRONES in Omaha, Nebraska said: Heather you are absolutely incorrect. I've been a tech for 20+yrs and I've never seen this field have any sort of cycle. For my entire career I've been able to find any job I wanted wherever I've wanted to go. I was in on the ground floor of MRI in my area.

If you could please point out the specific periods of time for these cycles I'd really to hear about them.

Can you say negative?

student in Canton, Massachusetts said: Can you say negative?

I can say truthful.

Of course medicine is not going to go away. But the way in which *medicine* (Health Care) is administered going forward is going to change drastically and indeed, you are already seeing the fallout. When I graduated in 1981, Radiologic Technology was not a hot career field so to speak. It was still primarily a female profession with a small percentage of males. Ladies would enter and then eventually leave or go PT as they had children and the Husband became the primary earner. There was a natural turnover of staff. MRI and other modalities didn't exist. Outpatient Imaging was a small player in the grand scheme. Most young people were interested in the fast growing IT Field. The education of RT's was mostly done by local community Hospital's to supply the natural attrition, it was not a business. Class sizes were limited. Reimbursement was high for Radiology. There was a period of explosive growth fueled by OEM's (GE, Siemens, etc.) seizing the opportunity to drive CT and then MRI into ever smaller Community Hospital's and RT School's not being able to maintain the supply / demand ratio as X-Ray Tech's upgraded their knowledge and cross trained by the thousands into these new modalities. The advent of Open MRI's, believe it or not, was a huge source of employment for RT's as the equipment became cheaper to own and operate as *Outpatient Imaging* grew exponentially to accommodate the ever increasing demand for services.

Look around now and what do you see ? All of the above in a huge reversal. It's not some cyclical event that is going to be repeated. The thought process that *retiring baby boomer's* are somehow going to reverse this trend is a fallacy. Every Western Country on Earth is grappling with the same problem. An aging population and diminishing financial resources. If anything, it will get worse.

You should pay attention to Drones in Omaha.

SaveMeFromRadiology in Kansas City, Missouri said: Of course medicine is not going to go away. But the way in which *medicine* (Health Care) is administered going forward is going to change drastically and indeed, you are already seeing the fallout. When I graduated in 1981, Radiologic Technology was not a hot career field so to speak. It was still primarily a female profession with a small percentage of males. Ladies would enter and then eventually leave or go PT as they had children and the Husband became the primary earner. There was a natural turnover of staff. MRI and other modalities didn't exist. Outpatient Imaging was a small player in the grand scheme. Most young people were interested in the fast growing IT Field. The education of RT's was mostly done by local community Hospital's to supply the natural attrition, it was not a business. Class sizes were limited. Reimbursement was high for Radiology. There was a period of explosive growth fueled by OEM's (GE, Siemens, etc.) seizing the opportunity to drive CT and then MRI into ever smaller Community Hospital's and RT School's not being able to maintain the supply / demand ratio as X-Ray Tech's upgraded their knowledge and cross trained by the thousands into these new modalities. The advent of Open MRI's, believe it or not, was a huge source of employment for RT's as the equipment became cheaper to own and operate as *Outpatient Imaging* grew exponentially to accommodate the ever increasing demand for services.

Look around now and what do you see ? All of the above in a huge reversal. It's not some cyclical event that is going to be repeated. The thought process that *retiring baby boomer's* are somehow going to reverse this trend is a fallacy. Every Western Country on Earth is grappling with the same problem. An aging population and diminishing financial resources. If anything, it will get worse.

Extremely well said SaveMeFromRadiology. Heather you should listen to SaveMeFromRadiology.

I just want to add onto the wonderful post by SaveMeFromRadiology.
Radiology or Medicine for that matter has never been cyclical. Up until 10yrs ago there was always a great demand for all the various technologies. Not only has radiology been growing and progressing since its discovery but so has the rest of medicine. This has resulted in creating more jobs including new ones that never existed before. All through this time medicine has stayed relatively stagnent on the technology front. It wasn't until 10yrs ago or so that the EHR started to gain footing, digital radiography, pet scan, MRI etc are less than a generation old. The problem is that no one ever asked how we were going to pay for all this technology or what it was going to do to medicine. Despite what many would like to be believe medicare, social security, medicade are not money trees. People are now living well past the time when they are taking more than they gave. Now they are taking from their children and grandchildren. These exams are extremely costly. Insurance companies are cracking down on these advanced studies. Now we are starting to see a shrinking of the market combined with needing fewer technologists to do the same job, and piling on top of this is the over estimation of job need by the BLS which is still pumping out factually incorrect statistics. Neither the ARRT or ASRT care so long as the continue to increase membership despite the lack of jobs. All the professional magazines and journals don't even talk about it. One white hand washes the other.

In case it isn't obvious to everyone reading this thread, "Drones" and "SaveMeFromRadiology" are the same person. That's one of many reasons you shouldn't rely on internet postings to decide your own direction in life. If you want to work as a rad tech, go for it! There are now and always will be openings far into the future.

You got a more fundamental problem.

How much health care can one afford ??

Don't be surprised if people simply decide that they don't need healthcare. That sounds pretty horrific but if I don't have health insurance along with having a family and have a serious health issue not covered by insurance then I might (rational is another matter) decide to simply skip healthcare and worse case scenario simply die.

While that sounds extreme and hopefully that is the case, the simple fact of the matter is that we can't spend 100% of the GDP on healthcare. I suspect that we are graduating way too many medical professionals for the number of jobs that are likely to be available.

Buck in Phoenix, Arizona said: In case it isn't obvious to everyone reading this thread, "Drones" and "SaveMeFromRadiology" are the same person. That's one of many reasons you shouldn't rely on internet postings to decide your own direction in life. If you want to work as a rad tech, go for it! There are now and always will be openings far into the future.

Buck is apparement not observent enough to notice that "SaveMeFromRadiology" and I are listed under 2 different cities. We are not the same person. This forum does not allow you to choose your city. Buck is correct that you shouldn't rely on the internet alone, for instance the bureau of labor statistics,BLS,still lists radiology as a growing field. My advice is to job shadow, talk techs, outside of the confines of their work environment so you will get some honest answers. Talk to hiring manager and ask them how many positions they hired for last year, what those positions where, how much a starting technologists should be expected to make, HOW MANY APPLICANTS THEY HAD FOR EACH OF THOS POSITIONS. Also, check out the various job forums. This is where you will get an idea for the current job market.