AllHealthcare

Radiography is in part of it's regular cycle of boom and bust, exaggerated by the current economy.  Regular techs are having trouble finding jobs, consider sonography.   Or else another specialty, where you can cross train in a shorter time.... relatively short as compared with continued unemployment.  There will of course be boards afterward in many of the specialties, but if you have done the cross training gotten the required competencies and the studied, it is better than not doing anything .  Also consider sales/ marketing firms, they may be doing better, if that fails, you may have to take per-diem where it crops up and hope that you can ride that into a full time.

Hope that gives you some more to think about, I feel your pain.

Yes, I love what I'm doing when I get the opportunity to do it.  It gives me the chance to use a lot of problem solving and creativity in order to get the image that the doctors are looking for.  I love how it gives me relative independance to make patients feel more comfortable and at ease when they are in 'my room.'  If you are interested in MRI or CT get into an internship or an aid job sooner rather than later, this will give you the opportunity to see if it is truely for you.  I have worked with MRI myself. . .  I haven't run the actual programs, but I have helped set up patients and the coils.  The MRI setting can be a much more laid back one than X-ray, and so if you are a real up and about person, you may find yourself getting antsy.  I would recomend keeping all options open ...  do both.

Hope you find that you too enjoy it.  Clinicals is what will tell you that, but take them with a grain of salt, because there are some old school techs out there who will try and make you wonder why you picked it in the first place.  Just find your groove and have fun with it.

Sorry to hear that, I have seen many jobs pop-up in searches down here in PA for ultrasound techs.  I'm certain that you are correct that many of them may be filled by temp agencies.  In fact we've had a few come through here in the last week and a half, so if it was something that hadn't hit PA yet, it certainly is now.  I think that much of what is happening with general x-ray is the same as what you have said, except that rather than relying on staffing agencies, they are juggling large fleets of per-diem workers while hiring very few new full time or part time staff.  The fact remains that for those entering the field new, there are a wealth of opportunities, including those temp companies, that present themselves depending on how flexible other aspects of life are for them at this time.