"Essential Together": Celebrating UCSF Radiology Technologists During NRTW

Happy Radiologic Technology Week (NRTW) to the outstanding technologists at UCSF Radiology. I would like to acknowledge our technologists who each day treat our patients with care, skill and knowledge while practicing appropriate safety measures.

It can be easy to take this work for granted, thinking it isn't that hard to snap a picture. But taking good images is important for getting the patient the right diagnosis and catching disease at an early stage. When it comes to subtle disease finding, our technologists are the first line of defense in healthcare. To celebrate our techs and their work, I want to highlight some of the important contributions that techs make to patient care.

Empathy and safety are the keys to a successful care journey for our patients. Interacting with our technologists is often one of the first points of contact in the care continuum for those coming to UCSF, whether in an outpatient setting, the hospital, or the emergency room. Technologists are good listeners, and this has become even more apparent with the prevalence of telemedicine. Our technologists are giving the patient an extra look at a time when their visit with a physician may be virtual. While technologists make our patients feel comfortable before and during a scan or procedure, they are simultaneously focused on safety. Techs have expert knowledge of guidelines for MRI, radiation, contrast, and many other important safety areas.

Our technologists' precision and skill are crucial to a positive patient experience and also advance patients' diagnosis and treatment. We want to ensure that every patient gets the right care as quickly and accurately as possible. A goal for our techs is to provide the highest quality diagnostic images by accurately positioning the patient and working carefully to provide radiologists and other physicians with the precise imaging they need. We strive to get great, crisp diagnostic images for the radiologist to review, so that a subtle fracture or a subtle disease, isn't missed. In order to accomplish this, technologists need to understand the spectrum of disease and injury in order to get patients through the visit.

Though Radiologic Technology Week comes around only once each year, our patients and physicians benefit every day from the skill and expertise of technologists. Please join me in thanking our technologists for their significant contributions to our department and health system.