The Medical Radiation Technologist: A Valuable Resource

In their introduction to this text, the editors identify that the ultimate goal of radiology and radiology education is to help patients. This comes as no surprise to educators in health disciplines as the most common answer to the question “Why did you want to be a physician, nurse, MRT, Paramedic?” is, “To help people.” However, despite this almost universally expressed sentiment, health discipline education often does an inadequate job providing one of the key components required to deliver on this ultimate goal, that being the knowledge of, and developing respect for the competencies and capacities of health disciplines other than their own (Orchard et al. 2005). Failure to understand, and more importantly value the abilities of other health disciplines negatively impacts on interprofessional communication and, ultimately, has been identified as a contributing factor in many medical errors and negative patient outcomes (Miller 2003). As health professionals we all want to help the patients in our care, but too often our misperceptions regarding the scope of each others' practice coupled with communication strategies that are often ineffective, impairs our ability to deliver on that goal. “Learning to work together” has been identified as interprofessional education and is not a new concept. However, while progress is being made to increase collaboration between the disciplines, (Carpenter and Dickinson 2008) surprisingly little has been done within our own house to educate, inform, and share information between the disciplines that work within radiology. This chapter is not intended to be a guide for interprofessional education, rather it is designed as a starting point, a place to find and clarify information regarding the scope of practice, expertise, education, responsibilities, and competencies of medical radiation technology. It is hoped that this work will lead to increased collaboration and perhaps even an interprofessional curriculum design that allows student radiologists and student medical radiation technologists (MRT) to interact and discover each others' gifts and talents as they learn how to help the patients they serve together. For ease of use and readability, we have designed this chapter as a series of questions and corresponding answers. The answers provided are primarily based on Canadian standards for medical radiation technology education and practice. Although the answers provided are primarily based on Canadian standards for medical radiation technology education and practice, similarities will exist with many other jurisdictions.