My friend is thinking of going back to school to become a certified radiology technician. She is sick and tired of working for this financial auction house that grossly underpays her and there really is not much of a job market in this industry in the NYC area. I suggested to her to go more toward finance to get her series 7, etc. but she hates finance. She doesn't want to teach. She has a strong pharmacology background because she worked as a pharmacy technician for 7 years. She has a BS in psychology and she doesn't want to pursue that because it requires too much schooling and is no longer interested in that field.

So can any of you radiology technicians offer some advice that I can pass along to my friend? It seems they will always be in demand. The salaries seem good right? I hear they start at 45k which is pretty good.

Thanks for any advice.

 

Pharm tech, eh?

Here's a thought: rather than to go back to school and "start-over" with a new career path in radiology, has she considered pursuing a career in healthcare IT? With major hospitals being forced to switch over to electronic medical records, clinicians are hot in the IT industry. She can work for a software company, learn the application/software (1-2 months), and consult to regional hospitals that are implementing the software.

After 1-2 years of consulting, she can settle down at a client hospital and work in their IT department supporting the software she helped configure. It is such a niche field that job security is high and pay is pretty good.

Just a thought.

 

a radiological tech will always be.... just a tech.
Not a great step above a pharm tech IMO.
Although the pay is a little better.

it's hard to make a person out of someone that doesn't want to do this and that. "Beggars can't be choosers...."

 

she can be a chooser because she is not unemployed at the moment so that's good. I like what hitman mentioned though, it's good advice.

btw, is that from Ichi the killer? (Koroshiya Ichi)

 

How about being a Pharmaceutical sales rep. She can use her Psychology degrees, and Pharm Tech knowledge. They get paid $45k + bonus, benefits, cars, laptop, phone, Amex corporate expense card, many trips for corportate meetings.

as a xray tech- she will top out at $50k. As a Sales rep- the celing is in the $125k range.

 

A sales rep also makes good money. Another question she needs to figure out is how stressful she wants to the job to be. I know techs out there will flame me but the work itself is fairly routine and straightforward. You don't take work home and life can be quite peaceful.

Sales and consulting are stressful; just part of the game. Life will totally suck at times but that's also why you get paid more.

 

Sorry, didn't mean to judge her in my post. Just tired of hearing about people around me complaing of this and that, yet they don't do anything about it. Skimmed your post, and all that caught my eye was "doesn't want this, won't do that, etc etc"

I wish her the best of luck in whatever she finds