Student interest dwindles despite good pay
Add radiologic technologists to the list of health-care professionals in short supply.
The workers who take X-rays, mammograms, MRI images, CT scans and ultrasounds are increasingly hard to find, both in Rhode Island and nationally. The result, health professionals say, has been a paring back of hours and number of procedures, extended hospital stays and longer waits for patients.
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“For the past two-and-a-half years there’s really been a staffing problem,” said Ann M. Casey, director of the Diagnostic Imaging Department at Roger Williams Medical Center. “It seems like as soon as we get to full staff, people leave for whatever reason.”
Dr. Barbara Schepps, director of the Anne C. Pappas Center for Breast Imaging at Rhode Island Hospital and former president of Rhode Island Medical Imaging (RIMI) – one of the state’s largest for-profit imaging centers – said patients at some facilities must wait as long as five months for a routine mammography screening.
RIMI earlier this year was forced to curtail mammography services and stop offering evening and Saturday appointments because of the shortage of technologists, according to Schepps, who still works for the company. She said the changes have upset both patients and referring physicians.
At Rhode Island Hospital, some CT scanners have been taken out of use because there aren’t enough technologists to staff them, Schepps said.
The nationwide shortage is not as high profile – nor as costly to hospitals – as the dearth of registered nurses. But the vacancy rate for radiologic technologists is among the highest of any health-care profession, according to the American Hospital Association, and it is stunting one of the most rapidly growing fields of medicine.
Over the past three decades radiology has evolved from predominantly the taking of X-rays to include the pervasive use of ultrasound, mammographies, CT scans and MRIs. Radiologic procedures are being used in more and more diagnostic tests and for treatments of prostate cancer and other diseases.
While demand for imaging services is booming – driven by aging baby boomers and advances in medical technology – the pool of radiologic technologists, as well as radiologists, is either stagnant or in decline.
The number of students taking the national American Registry of Radiologic Technologists exam has slipped from 10,629 in 1994 to 7,149 in 2000. Meanwhile, the number of imaging procedures in the United States is expected to grow 140 percent by 2020.
Despite only two years of required schooling for radiologic technologists – and salaries ranging from the mid-$30,000s to nearly $70,000 for some highly experienced sub-specialties such as MRI or CT technologists – both hospitals and for-profit imaging centers are struggling to fill spots.
Earlier this year, RIMI was mired with 15 vacancies on its staff of about 80 radiologic technologists, although it has closed that gap considerably in recent months, according to human resources manager Lynn Flynn.
Hospitals, however, generally have a tougher time attracting and retaining radiologic technologists – largely because the jobs are considered more demanding than positions at office-based imaging centers. About 9 percent of the roughly 200 radiologic technologist positions at the state’s hospitals are vacant, according to the Hospital Association of Rhode Island.
“The hours are worse, the acuity of the patients is more severe, and they might have night and weekend call schedules,” Schepps said of hospital-based radiologic technologists.
For more than two years, Roger Williams operated with three holes in its staff of 20 full-time radiologic technologists, before hiring three new graduates last summer. “We approached (the students) in January and asked them if they would come work for us if we held spots open,” Casey said. “The competition is very fierce when they graduate.”
Rhode Island has two accredited radiography programs: one at Rhode Island Hospital, which costs $4,000 for the two-year program, and the other at the Community College of Rhode Island, where the two-year tuition is $5,000.
But only a fraction of the students who enter the programs end up completing their training. At CCRI, where the program is licensed to take 47 new enrollees a year, just 16 students completed the program in 2001. Rhode Island Hospital’s program last year graduated just five of the 12 students who enrolled.
Sharon Perkins, the radiography program director at CCRI, says the program has a high dropout rate because many students enroll with only a vague idea of what radiologic technologists actually do. The job description includes a lot of moving and situating patients – most of whom are sick and some of whom are ornery.
“I think a lot of people don’t realize what they’re getting into,” Perkins said. “Some don’t realize that this is a difficult, full-time commitment.” She added, though, that retention has improved as students become aware of their vibrant job prospects.
Schepps said part of the problem is that high school students generally aren’t exposed to the field of radiology – a disconnect that often is cited as a factor in the nursing shortage as well.
The health-care industry, led by HARI, has bolstered its work-force development efforts in recent years to get kids thinking about careers in health care. The hospital association is planning a “virtual job shadow” on Nov. 14 for about 200 students and teachers to participate in an interactive learning program focused on careers in radiology.
“Radiology is not a sexy, well-publicized field, so high school students don’t know anything about it,” Schepps said. “But it is an exciting field, and there are very few careers in which you can go to school for two years and come out making a very good salary.”
And the job search is likely to be short-lived.
