Find Multiple Radiology Careers in Your Area
Radiology careers -- choosing a subspecialty
Written by: No Doubt Marketing
Radiology careers
A radiologist is a medical imaging expert who can choose between many different radiology careers. While just being a radiologist is a rewarding profession, extra training can lead to a specialty in one area of radiology.
A board-certified radiologist is qualified to take and interpret imagines like those from CT scans, fluoroscopes, x-rays, nuclear medicine imagine tests, ultrasound and MRI. A radiologist must earn an MD degree from a medical school, and pass an examination for licensing. This also requires a residency in radiology, just like a physician must have to become a practicing doctor.
It's after this residency that a radiologist can choose a subspecialty to concentrate on highly specialized radiology careers. This will require more clinical work and study in that specialized field.
Specialized radiology careers
A growing number of radiologists are choosing radiology careers in nuclear medicine. This type of imaging uses tiny particles of radioactive materials to make certain problems apparent in the body. There are nuclear tests for almost every part of the body from the bones to the heart and other organs. People who choose nuclear radiology careers work with PET and CT scans, and gamma imaging.
Chest radiology involves the specialized study of the chest area through CAT scans, ultrasounds, MRI, x-rays and procedures on the fluid drained from the chest as well as biopsies from the lungs. This specialty among radiology careers is devoted to the study and imagine of the heart and lungs in looking for diseases of the chest. People who choose breast imaging as a specialty become experts at mammography and thinks like MRI and ultrasound imaging of the breasts as well as breast tissue biopsies.
Some radiology careers focus on specialized areas like: head and neck radiology; musculoskeletal radiology, which focuses on the muscles and bones; cardiovascular radiology, which focuses on veins and arteries; genitourinary radiology, which focuses on the reproductive organs; neuroradiology, which covers the brain, spine and nervous system; and gastrointestinal radiology, which focuses on the digestive system.
Those radiology careers focus on a certain part of human anatomy. But even more radiology careers have a broader focus even though they're specialties. Emergency radiology, for instance, is the imaging used in emergency conditions, particularly in trauma situations. Pediatric radiology specializes in the diagnostic imaging of children.
Even more radiology careers
There is more to a radiologist's job than taking "pictures" and interpreting them. Especially if the specialties are interventional radiology or radiology oncology. In interventional radiology, imaging techniques are used to complete procedures that aren't as invasive as some others, like biopsies, stent placement, angiography and other procedures. And radiation oncology is the use of radiation to treat cancer.
Other radiology careers including becoming a radiologist assistant, who works side by side with the radiologist, and a radiologic technologist, who also assists the radiologist in basic procedures. Nurses can also have radiology careers by becoming radiology nurses, who help care for patients undergoing radiology procedures, especially those undergoing radiation treatments and interventive procedures.
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