MT Training > Radiology

Radiology (also called roentgenology after its discovery, Wilhelm Conard Roentgen) is the medical specialty concerned with the study of x-rays, X-rays are invisible waves of energy that are produced by an energy source (x-ray machine, cathode ray tube) and useful in diagnosis and treatment of disease.

Nuclear medicine is the medical speciality that studies the characteristics and uses of radioactive substances in the diagnosis of diseases. Radioactive substances are materials that emit high-speed particles and energy-containing rays from the interior of their matter. The emitted particles and rays are called radioactivity and can be of three types: alpha particles, beta particles and gamma rays. Gamma rays are similar to x-rays in that they have no mass and are used effectively as a diagnostic label to trace the path and uptake of chemical substances in the body.

Radiation therapy (radiation oncology) is the treatment of disease using either an external source of high-energy rays (photons, electrons, protons, gamma rays) or internally implanted radioactive substances. These rays and substances are effective in damaging the DNA of cancer cells and halting their growth.

The personnel involved in these medical fields are varied.

¨      A Radiologist is a physician who specializes in the practice of diagnostic radiology

¨      A Nuclear physician is a radiologist who specializes in the practice of

¨      administering diagnostic nuclear medicine procedures.

¨      A Radiation oncologist (radiotherapist), also a physician, specializes in the practice of radiotherapy (treatment of disease using radiation).

¨      Radiologic technologists Allied heath care professionals who work with physicians in the fields of radiology nuclear medicine, and radiotherapy, Radiologic technologists can be divided into three categories:

1.    radiographers (Aid physicians in administering diagnostic x-ray procedures).

2.    nuclear medicine technologists (attend to patients undergoing nuclear medicine procedures and operate devices under the direction of a nuclear physician),

3.    radiation therapy technologists (deliver courses of radiation of therapy prescribed by a radiotherapist).

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