Button Pushers: Why you should choose Radiography

Hi! My name is Laura, I’m 20 years old, an incoming 3rd year Diagnostic Radiography student at Birmingham City University and also a Bank Radiology Support Worker at my local NHS Trust.

Laura Mathers

Throughout my time on the course, I have become passionate about raising awareness of and speaking about radiography as an exciting and highly rewarding career. This interest noticeably peaked after joining the healthcare student community on Instagram, and finding a significant lack of student radiographers on the platform, mirroring the lack of resources, support and encouragement for us compared to the likes of nurses and midwives. Both diagnostic and therapeutic radiographers are considered ‘shortage occupations’ in the UK, which means that they are high in demand. By sharing my experiences and advice, I hope to inspire current students to consider applying to study Diagnostic Radiography to become highly skilled, autonomous practitioners and to also educate other healthcare professionals about the importance of radiographers’ work.

It’s hard to remember life on placement pre-pandemic, but at my trust we rotate through one department each week including A&E, General, CT, MRI, Ultrasound, Nuclear Medicine, Fluoroscopy and Theatre. For the purposes of avoiding confusion and boredom, I will focus solely on ‘plain-film’ or ‘projection’ x-ray, the most commonly requested modality and the one taught at undergraduate level. As a student, you are allowed to take x-rays under direct or indirect supervision. This involves justifying a request, positively identifying the patient, asking the patient for consent, positioning them and the x-ray tube correctly, taking the x-ray, assessing the quality of the x-ray you’ve just taken, sending it to the correct place and sending the patient away to the correct place. Seems simple enough. But what if you have a patient with dementia who doesn’t know their name? What if you have an unconscious polytrauma patient in head blocks who can’t move? Or a screaming child? Or a patient who has recently watched the HBO Series Chernobyl and calls the department 15 times asking if their CT scan will make their skin peel off (Yes, this did actually happen.)? As a radiographer you have a very small amount of time to use your frighteningly good communication skills to build a level of rapport with each patient so that they allow you to perform a diagnostic examination. You can never know who’s going to walk, or be wheeled, through the door, so you need to be adaptable, because they need your help.

People say that it’s easy work, like my Mum (not a radiographer) did when she suggested I apply for it... but it can be very challenging, especially for someone like myself who suffers with anxiety, because of the time pressures, deadline pressures for students, or the unpredictable variety of patients we see. It’s not like working on a ward where all of the patients would have the same or similar problems, there’s no order of priority or set number of people attending, which adds another level of difficulty. However, it is incredibly rewarding knowing that something you produced yourself will aid in the diagnosis of that patient’s problem and will actively inform their care pathway. You might only get to spend 5 minutes with a patient, and you probably won’t see them again, and they probably won’t remember your name or your job title, but you will definitely feel proud that you delivered the best care possible within a less-than-ideal timeframe. Oh, and you produced an x-ray worthy of being published in Clark's Positioning in Radiography.