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Help wanted: nuclear medicine specialists

Outlook is bright for technologists looking for jobs

By Davis Bushnell, Globe Correspondent, 5/16/04

Globe Staff Photo/Justine Hunt Nuclear medicine technologist Tiffany Le prepares the Positron Emission Tomography machine at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. Globe Staff Photo/Justine Hunt Tiffany Le with Dr. Gerald Kolodny, her supervisor at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. "What I'm doing involves a fascinating combination of chemistry, physics, biology, and anatomy," she said.

Job prospects are bright for nuclear medicine technologists, who operate state-of-the-art imaging machines for detecting heart conditions, cancers, and endocrine gland disorders.

There are not enough of these specialists to meet the needs of hospitals nationwide, where demand for nuclear medicine imaging and tests has grown with the aging of the baby boomers. For example, between 13,000 and 16,000 such procedures are performed annually at Massachusetts General Hospital compared to between 6,000 and 9,000 10 years ago, said George Desko, manager of nuclear cardiology.

A study completed a year ago by the Massachusetts Hospital Association revealed that the state's hospitals had a 14.6 percent vacancy rate for nuclear medicine technologists. That trend is continuing, says the association, which is now updating its data.

Currently, there are about two dozen openings at hospitals across the state, said Steven Correnti, director of recruiting for the Dory Group, a healthcare staffing firm in Salem. The scarcity of nuclear medicine techs, healthcare officials say, is due mostly to the limited number of colleges offering programs leading to an associate or bachelor's degree in the field.

One reason for the shortage of specialists, officials say, is that many would-be technicians are able to use their computer skills to land high-tech and drug company jobs. Another is a lack of student awareness of what the discipline is all about.

In this state, schools with major concentrations in nuclear medicine are the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences in Boston, Salem State and Worcester State colleges, and Springfield Technical Community College. Between them, they now have 78 nuclear medicine students. The Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences has the most students, 35. Over the years, a number of schools have dropped nuclear medicine programs because of high teacher and laboratory costs, said Frances Keech, director of the nuclear medicine program at the Mass. College of Pharmacy.

The state Department of Public Health currently licenses 635 nuclear medicine technologists. Licensing is done on an ongoing basis, spokeswoman Roseanne Pawelec said.

There are indications nationally, however, that the discipline is growing. The current number of technologists, some 17,000, is expected to increase by 25 percent by 2012, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics forecasts.

In Massachusetts, demand still eclipses supply, even with hospitals, in many cases, offering tuition reimbursements and relocation money as lures. Boston's teaching hospitals are always seeking to fill their nuclear medicine tech slots. Mass. General, for example, now has six openings and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center has two.

''There's intense competition among hospitals in this city'' for these specialists, said Dr. Edwin Palmer, one of five nuclear medicine physicians at Mass. General, which has 22 technologists.

Nuclear medicine is ''a jeweled field,'' but many young people ''don't know much about it,'' said Michael Foss, dean of Springfield Technical's School of Health. Fourteen students are enrolled in the school's nuclear medicine technology courses.

Nurturing increased awareness among college students about opportunities in the field, which requires computer skills and science knowledge, is a prescription for bringing supply in line with demand, according to Dr. Gerald Kolodny, director of the nuclear medicine division at Beth Israel Deaconess.

Pay is competitive, Kolodny and others said. Starting pay is $25.50 an hour at Beth Israel Deaconess, which has 17 technologists, Kolodny said. The average statewide salary cited by the Massachusetts Hospital Association in its 2003 survey was $60,000.

Tiffany Le, 34, of Boston, signed on with Beth Israel Deaconess in February, a month after graduating from the Mass. College of Pharmacy. She has a temporary license to practice from the state. Once she's certified by one of two national organizations, she will receive a permanent state license. The credentialing groups are the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists of St. Paul, and the Nuclear Medicine Technology Certification Board of Atlanta.

The career route Le traveled and her work are typical of those in the field.

Le has a bachelor of science degree in nuclear medicine technology, one that required her to take courses such as radiologic pharmaceuticals, physics, and radiation safety. During the accelerated three-year program, she interned at several Harvard teaching hospitals, including Beth Israel Deaconess.

Students at the Mass. College of Pharmacy have benefited from internship alliances with institutions such as Beth Israel Deaconess, Dana Farber Cancer Institute, and Children's Hospital, said Keech.

Le's decision to accept a job at Beth Israel Deaconess was influenced, she said, by the hospital offering her a tuition reimbursement of $6,000, which she accepted. The Mass. College of Pharmacy tuition is $18,000 a year, Keech said.

At Beth Israel, Le quickly became immersed in the workload, running several different machines, including one of the most sophisticated, the Positron Emission Tomography (PET) machine. After setting up the equipment, she double-checks a doctor's orders and then explains them to a patient. She also answers any questions a patient may have about safety measures being taken for the procedure.

The PET machine measures ''chemistry and anatomy at the same time, giving us the added ability to identify tumors and the spread of tumors,'' said Kolodny. The hospital, he said, performs about 900 nuclear medicine procedures a month. One-third of them are cardiology screenings, another third are for cancer, and the remaining third, endocrine.

Kolodny described the essence of nuclear medicine: ''Radioactive materials are joined to pharmaceuticals and are injected into a patient or swallowed by a patient. These materials go to a location of the body, and a radioactive signal comes out of the body. As a result, we can then detect blood flow in the heart, for example, or tumors.''

Le said, ''What I'm doing involves a fascinating combination of chemistry, physics, biology, and anatomy.''

It will take a while to raise awareness about the field and hospitals' ever-increasing needs as imaging technologies evolve, said Leo Nalivaika, nuclear medicine education coordinator at Worcester State, which has a joint program with the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester. Seven students graduated from the program May 13, and all have a line on jobs, he said. Ten others remain in the program.

But interest in the field is growing as students learn of ''the calls we're getting from hospitals all over the country about sending our grads their way,'' said Susan Case, chairwoman of Salem State's biology department, which oversees the 19 students taking courses in nuclear medicine.

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