medical assistant to operate c arm

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Welcome123

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Hi!

I know of several practices in nj that use assistants (not rad techs) to adjust/handle the c arm while the physician administers the x ray via foot pedals.

I have heard of practices in NY doing this as well but recently I was informed by rad tech that this was not allowed for ny state (although his source and reliability was questionable).

Does anyone know of the legality of this in ny?

thanks!

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i dont know the legality, but I work in NY and we only have MAs and NPs run our C-arm....no Rad Tech in sight. It surprised me too.
 
I am not sure of the actual laws. But why would moving a piece of equipment around require special certification? That would be like requiring someone who moves the chair around or turns the lights off to be certified in doing so. I imagine it isn't the moving of the machine around that matters, but the radiation that is delivered, where, and how much. I could be wrong as I often am. But it would seem ridiculous, of course there is a lot if that in our world though too.
 
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what is more ridiculous is I hear that the academic people behind radiology tech school are changing their training to now require a bachelors degree. I'm still not sure why they previously had to train for 2 years just to take static x-rays and move a C-arm back and forth, but I could understand an associates to become a rad tech.

A bachelors for rad tech makes as much sense as a professional doctorate for a pharmacist or physical therapist. The amount of eduction necessary to be a rad tech is clearly only an associates and the highly focused fields of PT and Pharmacy are only masters level in education, not matter what bull**** additional degrees they decided to require of their students, so they can call themselves a doctor and charge an extra year of tuition.
 
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i dont know the legality, but I work in NY and we only have MAs and NPs run our C-arm....no Rad Tech in sight. It surprised me too.

i believe the actual legal aspect is that only a certified radiation technologist or a physician is allowed to press the xray button...

one must remember the state in question. if it takes arizona 1 page to regulate something (say, in-office conscious sedation), then california would have 5 pages, and new york at least 10...
 
what is more ridiculous is I hear that the academic people behind radiology tech school are changing their training to now require a bachelors degree. I'm still not sure why they previously had to train for 2 years just to take static x-rays and move a C-arm back and forth, but I could understand an associates to become a rad tech.

A bachelors for rad tech makes as much sense as a professional doctorate for a pharmacist or physical therapist. The amount of eduction necessary to be a rad tech is clearly only an associates and the highly focused fields of PT and Pharmacy are only masters level in education, not matter what bull**** additional degrees they decided to require of their students, so they can call themselves a doctor and charge an extra year of tuition.

Ahh, you are missing the big picture. Once you have a bachelors degree, you can do a one year clinical rotation and get a doctorate degree. Once you have a doctorate, your national academy can push for the right to perform interventional procedures - because you are now a doctor. Because it is difficult to run the c-arm and do the procedure, they will start a new degree known as the rad tech assistant. They will actually position the c-arm while the rad tech doctor does the procedure. Just follow the money.
 
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ahh, you are missing the big picture. Once you have a bachelors degree, you can do a one year clinical rotation and get a doctorate degree. Once you have a doctorate, your national academy can push for the right to perform interventional procedures - because you are now a doctor. Because it is difficult to run the c-arm and do the procedure, they will start a new degree known as the rad tech assistant. They will actually position the c-arm while the rad tech doctor does the procedure. Just follow the money.

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