X-Ray Day!

Today marks the 115th anniversary of the day that started the diagnostic imaging revolution. You couldn't have missed it if you were on the Google website today!

It excited me... and more. I feel like I'm celebrating a birthday, and I definitely feel like doing the annual "summing up" that is a traditional part of all anniversary observances. I am celebrating the birth of my profession, a rather exclusive profession consisting of radiologists and radiation technologists, physicists and biophysicists, biomedical engineers and basic scientists. We may be math geeks interested in people ... or doctors interested in physics ... or scientists interested in the application of erudite theories to real-world scenarios. Whatever the designation, you'll find a community of human beings skilled in the art and science of merging technology with quality of life. And I am proud to be a part of that!

I know these discoveries are important, but today I feel I should focus on the people instead. Folks talk a lot about doctors and physicists, those learned ivory-tower specialists whom, if you meet in a social context, you instantly feel a pang of admiration (and envy) for, maybe along with a sudden dryness of the tongue! I work with one group, I'm training to be another. I know these people and I do admire them. But, over the last few years, I have been taught a lot by another group of people who are seldom thought about, and it is them that I think of today. These are the ubiquitous Technologists, the people who sit at the machines and do most of its everyday running, and serve as the first line of defense for the residents of the ivory tower and the $100k+ brigade.

I wish I knew where to start. I have observed these people work under tough conditions, long hours, on-call weekends. I have observed them working patiently and calmly with difficult doctors, residents who don't know what they're doing and won't ask for help, with sick patients, patients in pain, infected patients, and worse. I have seen them come in at 6:00am and leave at 10:00pm, and watched as they left on a weekend at 4:00pm, only to return at 6:00pm for an emergency scan. I have asked them silly day-to-day questions to familiarize myself with the scanner, and I have learned tips and tricks from them that it would have taken years to learn alone. I have requested them, wheedled them and inadvertently even rushed them sometimes into allowing me on the system to run my experiments, and they have always tried to accommodate me. Like a fractious child, I have pulled the system apart, and they, like "Fix-It" Moms and Dads, have helped me bring it back together.

Each one of the Technologists I have interacted with has brought a lot more knowledge, a little more convenience and a welcome smattering of fun into my life, and for that, I thank them today. They are the "do-ers" who have made the profession a little more accessible for those that need to use its services, allowing the "thinkers" to follow the ideas that eventually broaden the field. The decades to come will bring many workflow optimizations in diagnostic imaging, but I am certain that the Technologist will remain an active and necessary cog in this wheel.