Medical Imaging Technologist

Hello, my name is Sarah and I take x-rays.
My job in a nutshell as a radiographer,
I basically take different types of x-rays all day.
. There's lots of different types of x-rays that we do.
Like the normal x-rays you do if you break your arm or have a chest infection.
We have ones on wheels that we take up to patients who are too unwell to come
down to where our big x-ray machines are.
And we also do x-rays in operating theaters as well. I'm going to a do a chest x-ray
on a toddler,
so I'm going to need the camera pointing sideways and a board at the end of the bed
to catch the x-ray when I take it.
"So just keep holding him still there for a tiny,
we bit longer while I check the picture and it's a lovely one."
"We're all done." So this is what the inside of an x-ray room looks like.
So there'll be a console,
so a computer that controls all the settings of the x-ray machine.
This is what an x-ray machine looks like. So it's got lots of different buttons.
Buttons here to change the shape of the light so that it matches what you want to
do. I can't take an x-ray of a real person [for this video]
but I could take an x-ray of some random objects. Here's a phone, a pen,
a pencil, see what they look like. There you go.
Loads of detail. And that's a pen and a pencil.
So you can see the metal shows up really bright,
but then the less dense bits don't show up quite so bright. So in terms of how
to become a radiographer, you do need to do the degree that's required,
which is a Bachelor of Health Science in Medical Imaging.
You get to work in the hospital as part of your degree. To pass your degree,
you need a certain amount of clinical hours.
There's lots of different types of imaging that you can get into once you've
done your x-ray degree. So you can do MRI scans,
so Magnetic Resonance Imaging,
you can do ultrasound scanning. Some things that are quite important is being
able to have empathy because you're taking care of people sometimes when they're
in a really bad way. And if you can't empathise
with that, then I think you're probably going to struggle.
I like a lot of things about my job.
I get variety in my hours so I can do day shifts and after-hours shifts as well.
There is actually quite a lot of creativity and problem solving involved.
If patients come in for a certain type of x-ray that you need at a certain angle
and they can't achieve that angle,
then you have to get a bit creative and make something up.
That's probably one of my favorite parts.
I have such an awesome team and they're so great to work with.
If you work with great people, that makes the job so much better.