YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – A new lab opening this month at Youngstown State University aims to address a health care need.
The radiologic technology lab in Cushwa Hall will greet students when they return to classes Aug 25.
YSU added a radiologic technology associate degree last year to serve students who transferred when Eastern Gateway Community College closed. This fall, though, marks the first class to enroll in YSU’s radiologic technology program to start their degrees.
“There’s a massive demand for rad techs nationwide,” says Sara Michaliszyn, dean of YSU’s Bitonte College of Health and Human Services.
That need will grow as the population ages, compounding the demand for professionals with a radiologic technology degree.
“It’s to fill the supply, fill the need – the health care need,” she adds.
Hospitals’ Need
Eastern Gateway’s closure meant the radiologic technology degree was no longer provided in the Mahoning Valley, so YSU stepped in to do it, she says.
“And our hospitals are desperately looking for rad techs,” says Lisa Galich, director of YSU’s radiologic technology program.
Radiology programs across the country are restricted in the number of students they can accept for clinical rotations, based on their number of personnel and physical space.
“This gives this area another filter for the program,” Galich explains. “Plus, we have a lot of local people here that are really interested in this field and kind of steered away from it throughout the years, because YSU didn’t offer it.”
Jane Beight, radiology manager at Akron Children’s Hospital Mahoning Valley in Boardman, says in an email the hospital campus will be working with YSU to help provide clinical experience for the radiology technology program at the university.
“Over the past three years there has been a shortage of registered radiologic technologists to fill the needs of the
local hospitals,” she says. “The YSU program will help to fill the need for technologists in our local area. We are looking forward to being a clinical site for this new program. We depend on this new supply of trained radiographers to fill the needs as our imaging departments expand services and older staff retire.”
The Lab
The YSU lab on Cushwa’s first floor, which formerly housed an emergency medical technician program, includes eight-foot-thick lead walls to prevent radiation exposure outside of the space. A list of capital projects presented at a June YSU trustees’ finance and facilities committee meeting listed $500,000 as the cost of the lab. Construction started in May.
“We will have a fully functioning X-ray machine – just like you would in the hospital,” Galich says.
A general X-ray tech takes basic X-rays but isn’t licensed to do CTs or MRIs unless they’ve been trained and pass the required national examination. Students in the YSU program will take X-rays on a full-body X-ray Phantom, a medical device that looks like a person, including simulated bones and tissue. That’s important because radiologic technologists need to know anatomy and how and why they’re taking an X-ray, Galich explains.
X-rays may be taken when a patient is standing or prone. In orthopedic medicine, rad techs often take X-rays while a patient is upright so the physician may view joints and potential joint disease.
“We teach pathology as well,” Galich says. “We don’t diagnose as technologists. That is not something that is in our scope of practice or wheelhouse.”
But a radiologic technologist needs to know what he or she is looking for because that informs how to take the X-ray, she adds.
Students will learn how to position both the device and the patient based on the type of X-ray and the patient size. It’s different for an adult versus a child and an overweight person versus one who’s slender.
Galich, who used to teach at Eastern Gateway and is a radiology technician, working in health care for 17 years, looks forward to having a new machine for students to learn. Many health care organizations have equipment that’s aging.
The GE HealthCare Definium Tempo features auto-positioning, a 3D camera and personal assistant.
Learning the Basics
The X-ray machine allows its operator to hit a button, triggering the device to position itself, for example. But Galich believes students need to learn to do the work themselves and will instruct accordingly.
“They will have to manipulate everything manually because it’s the only way you really learn,” she says.
If a student gets a job at a hospital that doesn’t have the same equipment, he or she needs to be able to adjust and take X-rays, Galich points out. That knowledge also helps if a machine’s automatic functions stop working.
Twenty students have signed up to begin the two-year program this fall. That’s the maximum. Michaliszyn says about 150 wanted to enroll, but participation is restricted because of available clinical spots.
“And also, the job market kind of dictates that too,” Galich says. “So right now there’s a high demand, but sometimes it falls off. It fluctuates.”
Part of launching a new degree involves writing the curriculum and Galich used her experience in the field, lab and classroom as well as discussions with people from across the country to develop the program of study at YSU.
“The program follows a very strict curriculum and sequence, so they have to have so many clinical hours and so many didactic courses and your procedures, so it does follow a strict sequence,” Galich notes.
She wanted to make sure those enrolled in the program are good at their jobs – that if she leaves academia and returns to the field, they’re the kind of rad tech she would want working next to her.
“I care about the images I take,” Galich says.
She knows that a chest X-ray that’s not done properly, for example, may lead to patient misdiagnosis.
“It’s important to know all the proper anatomy and what you’re looking at and all your proper processes, so that it all comes down to patient safety and patient care,” Galich says.
The program director learned how to take X-rays using film and knows the importance of image and positioning quality. Film has since been phased out and replaced with digital technology that completes many tasks for the technologist.
“I want to stress that if you’re taking care of me or my family, I want to make sure I’m getting a quality X-ray,” Galich says.
She calls that her passion. “My passion is people,” Galich says. “I love the patients and that’s just what I look for when I’m building my lessons.”
She also emphasizes that because what a textbook says doesn’t always match reality, she reviews different scenarios.
“I really just base it off of a technologist standpoint, and what I would want for my family,” Galich says.
Pictured at top: Sara Michaliszyn, dean of the Youngstown State University Bitonte College of Health and Human Services, and Lisa Galich, director of YSU’s radiologic technology program, stand in the new radiologic technology lab that’s under construction in YSU’s Cushwa Hall. The lab, a first at YSU, is expected to open for the start of classes this month.