CAREER DESCRIPTION

A health care professional who possesses the knowledge and skills to use radioactive materials for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. The nuclear; medicine technologist is responsible of radiopharmaceutical preparations and administrations, operation of clinical nuclear instruments, position of patients for imaging procedures, collecting and preparing biologic specimens, preparing images and other data for physician interpretation.

GENERAL PATIENT RELATED TASKS

The student must be able to:

● Communicate with patients and others in completion of tasks.

● Retrieve and dispatch patients, within the department and in the hospital at large.

● Provide for the patient's physical safety and well being while (s)he is under the technologist's care.

● Provide basic life support services when needed.
● Secure and assist with advanced life support services, where indicated.

● Assist with patient movement and perform direct positioning for radiographic projections and procedures.

● Receive and schedule patient, file, and assist with office and clerical work.

RADIOHARMACY

The student must be able to:

● Elute a radionuclide generator and assay the elute utilizing available and currently accepted methods and instrumentation.

● Safely and accurately handle and manipulate vials and syringes in order to prepare, assay and quality control radipharmaceuticals.

● Prepare radiopharmaceuticals for intravenous administration, via syringe and needle, to patients.

IMAGING PROCEDURES:

The student must be able to:

● Possess the manual dexterity necessary to perform an intravenous injection.

● Be able to prepare the proper instrumentation using physically manipulative skills as necessary, including the use of relatively massive but portable units.

● Be able to ambulate sufficiently to physically assist patients during procedures and provide supportive measures in emergencies.

● Be able to communicate effectively with patients.

Possess the manual dexterity to manipulate image recording devices and process film in prescribed manners.

● Be able to visually asses the quality of processed studies for judgment decisions concerning film quality.

RADIOASSAY

The student must be able to:

● Possess the manual dexterity to quantitatively dispense various volumes of radioactive and non- radioactive liquids utilizing accepted laboratory pipettes and hardware.

● Be able to manipulate the mechanical and electronic instrumentation used in the laboratory.

● Be able to manipulate the relatively massive physical barriers used as shielding in the laboratory.

● Be able to process results in accepted formats (such as graphs, curves and charts).

(top)