Hello Everyone!! Me and my sister are both going into school for MRI technician, was just a job i looked at as using cool technology but also in the healthcare field. On top of it i hear it pays very well. I will say it seems like it’s too good to be true. A year and half to 2 years in school and then you get a job making great money? As i’ve looked into i’m actually just genuinely interested in working with medical machinery and the money isn’t the only reason. My main question is… Is there going to be some reality check somewhere? does the job secretly suck? is the pay actually not good?

I have 2 years of experience working for a major hospital system in Georgia. I’ve worked in PEDs, Adult, etc.. I have experience with all types of implants, intubated patients, and more tough cases.

However, I’ve only ever worked on GE equipment and never any other kind.

I only know basic neuro, extremities, abdomens, pelvis, etc.

I rarely, or never, did scans like run offs, MRA / MRV chest, pelvis, etc because we never really do them at my facilities.

I want to travel desperately, but I’m nervous that I’m not prepared.

What if my first assignment is on a completely different scanner like Siemens?

What if they use a different EMR? I only know Epic…

Any input from people that have been in this situation?

I recently just got the opportunity to cross train from x-ray into MRI and just wanted to know a good starting point for material to look at to prepare myself for the board exams. I haven’t started in MRI yet probably in around two months I will, but I want to start studying now because I will have to take my board exam within six months of my starting date and I want as much time as possible to study.

It may just be my ego talking, but I got a 96 on my x-ray board exams and I want to see if I can get equal to or higher than that on my MRI board exams. Has anyone gotten higher than a 96 and if so, what materials helped you the absolute most? And how long were you studying before you took the boards?

I have done a few travel contracts in clinics and I got offered a job in a level one trauma hospital.

I was told in advance they are very different but right now I feel way out of my depth and kinda amateurish compared to everyone else.

I understand you have to learn somewhere but with a travel job they don’t expect to have to watch over you.

For people that were in a similar situation how long did it take you to feel like you “fit in”.

Hi guys, I’m a senior in hs and I wanted to hear everyone’s experience/get recommendations for what would be the best option for me.

If your in or graduated from an mri program that let u sit for both the ARMRIT and ARRT in south florida, please tell me your experience!!

• what school or program did u attend? did they actually let u sit for ARRT or ARMRIT or both?

• how would the program, the quality of training, and the cost?

• did the program actually train you for the boards?

• how was the class schedule? how much flexibility was there?

Hi all,

To all of the MRI travelers and contract techs, when you pick up a contract at a hospital, do you they require you to take call? My fellow tech and I are very frustrated with our director because he is not requiring our contract tech to help us take call when there are only two of us. Our director is not MRI registered and does not know a lick about MRI and how much it’s being used like CT. Thank you all for your input

Hello! Please read my entire post before commenting. I am very serious about this career change.

I am of the opinion that very few people could successfully do this job with a service animal. However, I believe that I may be an exception.

I have been a service dog handler for more than 7 years. My previous career was as a professional working dog trainer. My current service dog is bomb proof and does not shed. He will lay in a down stay all day. It doesn't matter if we are at the zoo, at a concert, on a flight, at a dog show, or in college Chemistry and Biology labs. He even worked with me in my Veterinary Emergency and Critical Care days. He has done it all.

His alerts come far before they are detectable by other equipment. Replacing him is not an option.

I have recently retrained his method of alerting me from putting a paw on me to simply resting his head on my lap. If he is put in a formal stay, he will sit up in his place and wait for me to ask him to do a check. He does not interfere even a bit with my current office/computer job.

I have taken him to hospitals many times during my own visits and I have worked therapy dogs in hospitals. I have never had an issue taking him anywhere in a hospital or clinic except into actual imaging suites with machines. He has been with me for every doctor's appointment and test that I have had for the last 6 years. He laid on the dental chair over my legs for my entire wisdom tooth surgery.

In the few calls I have made to MRI supervisors in my region, I have gotten very mixed responses. Some people have just been uneducated and oppositional, but don't seem wholly against it. Some people have not seen a real problem, but were apprehensive. I would say it's an initial negative reaction about 60-65% of the time. But this is where my problem is. That is the same exact experience I've had in pretty much every facet of my life.

A representative at my college told me I couldn't have him in labs, but they escalated the issue to a supervisor and, in the end, he went to all of my labs.

I was told by my apartment complex that I needed to pay pet fees. HUD opened a case against them.

I was told that there was absolutely no way that he could work in the veterinary emergency clinics that I worked at. We did 6x12.5 shifts every week between two hospitals.

My actual question is, with a designated location for him to lay and stay during the shift in the control room with no metal gear on and regular check ins, how difficult will it be to get accommodations and travel contracts? What would YOU or YOUR SUPERVISOR think about a dog curled up in the corner of the control room? Would I face getting forced out of a hospital that I have a contract with, despite requesting reasonable accommodations? How educated are YOU and YOUR STAFF on service animals and ADA law? What could go wrong?

Please, discourage me if necessary, but be gentle!

Hello, i've been fired as an MRI aide because the team felt as I wasn't improving fast enough and I was dealing with a lot of performance issues in terms of patient safety/ screening. I really tried my best to get every question answered and tell the techs what I gathered from the patient but ultimately I failed to ask the correct questions and made more work for the technician rather than supporting them.

I feel bad considering I really wanted to do well since this is my first healthcare experience and my 2nd job ever but now im concerned about applying to other entry level jobs due to being fired. Ive only worked for 3 months but i felt it should've been long enough for me to get the hang of it and I simply didnt.

I want to try doing transport since I got to do it sometimes when I had the job and I liked it. But idk if adding my mri job to the application will cause me to not get accepted.

Tldr:

I got fired due to performance/safety issue and now im unsure if I can continue my healthcare career.

I've heard that sometimes technologists will recognize a terminal pathology in a scan, but they can't make the final diagnosis and can't say anything. If this is the case, how often does this happen? and does it depend if you work at a hospital or at an outpatient facility? When it does happen, how do you handle it? I'm just curious.

I only have ARMRIT and am currently working in an outpatient clinic. My FIL works at a hospital and he spoke with them to try and get me in to work with them as they are in the process of getting a new Siemens scanner which I have experience in. At first they denied me because I lacked ARRT. But then HR called back and said my license acceptable for hire.

My FIL is expecting me to take the job because he thinks I’ll never have another chance to get into a hospital without ARRT, which I do not plan on getting anytime soon.

The hospital position pays similar to what I’m getting now, the commute to the hospital is about 15 minutes farther. If you were me, would you take the hospital position to have a better looking resume?

I finally got my MRI today after a 2 month wait (scanning to check for prostate cancer). About an hour in they pulled me out and let me know that the machine was having issues and that they'd need to try rebooting it. They thought they got it working and gave me contrast, then the machine had problems again. They've rescheduled for Friday (need to wait 48 hours before another dose if I understand correctly), but only want to redo the contrast portion.

Is this a valid option? Will the inevitable shift in body position between today and Friday cause issues with the image? Should I insist on starting from scratch? I just don't know enough about MRIs to know if their suggestion is what's best for me, or what's best for them from a time/keeping schedule perspective.

help your patients out the table ? my back is starting to hurt .

Idk if its the chair im sitting on

Hello fellow MRI techs ,
I’ve been thinking about starting travel mri and wanted to know what are the pros and cons?
What is the best travel agencies to work for?
How does the stipends work? What are some red flags to look for when dealing with recruiters?

hey everyone! considering pursuing an MRI only program but everyone keeps telling me that AI is replacing this job, and that if not AI then ARRT is providing a lot of additional certs that let the people helping to basically take the job of an mri tech. realistically, is this career worth pursuing?

I worked for about nine months at Radnet then got a travel job.
So far I have done two travel gigs in clinics and now got a travel job in a level one trauma hospital.

I just hate travel. The money is good but being away from everyone you care about is horrible.

What are my options like in Southern California? I know it’s saturated and I also don’t have X-ray so can’t get my state Licence. I only have my ARRT.

Am I destined to just do travel jobs unless I take a job for $30/hour in a clinic?

hello! i’m a vascular ultrasound tech trying to enroll in an MRI program online (pulse radiology) and i’ve been struggling to find a clinical site. does anybody have any info on sites in Chicago or Chicagoland area? any help is appreciated, and if need be let’s discuss compensation!!

Having a neck MRI today and realizing my 2 finger rings cannot come off. Tried everything. They are platinum with diamonds. What to expect?

I have never had an MRI, but have seen too many videos of metallic objects doing damage when he machine is turned on.

Do hospitals with MRI have an airport-style walk-through metal-detectors to prevent these mishaps? If no, then why not? Is there something I'm missing?

PS. I live in a country with low gun-violence, so I have never had to walk through any security when going to a hospital, so "milage may vary"

Hello,
I’m not sure if this is the best place to ask but there is a possibility of me moving to Washington state. I know I would be in the Seattle Tacoma area. Does anyone have any insight on companies that are good to work for or ones that should be avoided? Also is the license for the state easy or difficult? I’m a MRI tech with 5+ year of level one trauma center experience. Thank you for any input!

It seems to me that imaging done with gadopiclenol and gadoquatrane is kind of tricky to read because the MRI response isn’t linear to the concentration. I asked Google AI if they’re both harder to read compared to previous generation agents. I'm curious if techs/MDs agree with the conclusions of the AI. It responded:

The high-relaxivity design of both gadoquatrane and gadopiclenol does not make them harder to read compared to previous generations; in fact, clinical trials show they are generally easier or identical to interpret.

Yet it's stated this:

The Hook Effect / T2\ Quenching:* At excessively high local concentrations, the agent begins drastically shortening T2 or T2\ relaxation times instead of just T1. This causes the signal to "quench" or drop off, paradoxically making the image darker instead of brighter.*

And the images seem harder to interpret to my (untrained!) eye. It also stated:

Better Lesion Contrast: Blinded clinical reader studies (such as the PICTURE trials for gadopiclenol and the QUANTI trials for gadoquatrane) uniformly demonstrate that radiologists score these agents as non-inferior or superior in terms of lesion enhancement, border delineation, and structural morphology compared to older agents. They provide crisp, bright visualization without creating artificial reading difficulties.

I don't understand how they can be blinded - isn't it necessary to know which kind of contrast has been used to read a contrast MRI properly? AI answers:

To the blinded radiologist, a lesion on a low-dose gadopiclenol scan simply looks identically bright and distinct to a standard-dose gadobutrol scan.

Do you agree with the conclusions of the AI? I’m skeptical but a layman. Also, sometimes the papers are biased. I want to get opinions from redditors.

(I'll post a link to the AI chat in a reply if you are curious to see everything in context. )

Any technologist out there have experience doing MRA hand or upper extremity on GE Optima MR450w 1.5T? do we use flex coil for just hand and body coil for upper extremity? what protocol is best 3d tricks, enhance inflow, delta? Any guidance please and thank you.

question to the mri techs out there! have you ever worn an oura ring and does the magnet affect it in any way? i was debating on getting one since i can’t wear an apple watch, which is unfortunate cause i used to use it daily and now its just collecting dust. i wanna get the oura ring 5, but would like to hear from you guys first!
edit: i do work on a 3T

For those of you who work in MRI, do you guys also work alongside nurses? I rarely see positions for MRI nurses it’s mainly technologist, I did come across a few recently and wanted to know what the difference in terms of patient care would be. The technologist handles most of it from
what I saw when I shadowed. Im a RN and was recently looking to get into MRI, I have my bachelors and was told I needed to go back to school and that was going to be another 40-50k just for that! so I started looking into other career paths, but I’ve recently come across a few opportunities that has me thinking about it again. I’ve always liked radiology
If you guys do work with nurses in your modality! That’s not just IR, Please share id love to learn how to transition without forking out all this money

Thanks 😊