Rad Idea

BY TOMIO CALHOUN

STAFFING STRUGGLES ARE REAL

The struggle is real when it comes to attracting and retaining talent. I have attended three professional conferences this year and the near universal sentiment is that there are staffing challenges. My time at the North Carolina Society of Radiologic Technologist Inc., ASRT Educational Symposium, the ASRT Annual Governance and House of Delegates Meeting and the AHRA’s Annual Meeting all had testimony from leaders about the impact being felt. There are many reasons and justifications as to why this is, such as burnout, retirement of senior technologists, travel positions offering more money, better opportunities and the list goes on. Instead of focusing on the individual causes perhaps changes wil solve this problem.

OUTREACH AND AWARENESS

Outreach and awareness are two areas that can provide a way forward for our profession. I am a believer of making face-to-face contact with soon to be graduating imaging students. I have employed this strategy at every opportunity. A class is getting ready to graduate, I am sending emails and making phone calls requesting an audience with the class itself. The outreach strategy is to bring a small team from the organization and present the opportunities available to the class. The team consisted of a human resource recruitment specialist, the administrative director of radiology and me (director of radiology). This allowed us to cover many topics that the students were curious about. Resume, interview, benefits and continuing education questions were just some of the topics covered. The awareness strategy is similar. The main difference is I am there to provide general answers to questions they have and am not actively recruiting. I believe in the awareness strategy as it is beneficial to have a volunteer spend time to answer questions. Questions presented included how to negotiate for salary, importance of and how to prepare for interviews, expectations for new hires and introduction of professional societies that enriched their craft and career field.

BACK TO THE BASICS!

In the military, Army units are encouraged to sponsor schools in the surrounding area. Typical support provided by these units include school supplies and coat donations, along with reading books to students. This served a couple of purposes. The first purpose is building support among the community. The second purpose is indirect recruitment, having our military members around in uniform could lead to kids deciding to join the military when they are older. In a military hospital where I served previously, we would host high school students to volunteer, job shadow and/or be exposed to the numerous departments within the hospital. When local high schools hosted job fairs, we would present the different jobs available via the military. This approach can easily be transferred to hospitals and departments to establish relationships within the community. I asked one recent radiology technologist how she became aware of medical imaging, her answer (in summary) was “by accident.” A renewed effort by medical imaging professionals to invest time with local high schools is an opportunity we can capitalize on.

BUT WHAT ABOUT NOW?

I hear the groans in the room, but “Tomio the ideas mentioned above don’t help me out now.” I say, “You are correct. The return of investment on the previous ideas ranges from several months to years.” Then, a possible and highly controversial suggestion would be to look at an intern technologist and or early graduate program. For example, hiring a second-year student from a two-year program may be a solution for you. The pros of this are numerous and begin with being able to augment your workload by using this process. They can assist with performing exams under predefined conditions that are approved by the organization, department and fair for the student. Perhaps, that idea is too radical. So, why not hire them as a transport, tech aid and/ or radiology medical assistant? The idea is to offer them employment before they graduate with direct access to full-time employment upon graduation and attaining the appropriate certification. The goal is to expose, inform and develop the student to speed up the transition from student to technologist. The benefit for the student is knowing the organization is willing to support and invest in their future. •

- Tomio Calhoun is the director of radiology at Sampson Regional Medical Center.