51.09 Allied Health Diagnostic, Intervention, and Treatment Professions
· SOC 29-2034
Radiologic technologists produce the medical images physicians diagnose from — positioning patients, setting exposures and keeping the dose as low as the picture allows. ⚠ A median of $80,110 on a two-year degree, the best wage-to-training ratio on this site. ⚠⚠ Florida CERTIFIES the work under Chapter 468, admission is competitive and cohort-based, and the national registry requires an associate degree in any subject alongside an accredited programme.
What the work actually is
O*NET, on radiologic technologists: position patient on examining table and set up and adjust equipment to obtain optimum view; explain procedures and observe patients to ensure safety and comfort during scan; review and evaluate developed x-rays or computer-generated information to determine if images are satisfactory; prepare contrast material, radiopharmaceuticals, or anesthetic or antispasmodic drugs under the direction of a radiologist; complete quality control activities, monitor equipment operation, and report malfunctioning equipment; record, process, and maintain patient data or treatment records and prepare reports.
⚠ Positioning is the craft. A radiologist can only read what you produced, so an image that misses the joint space or clips the anatomy sends the patient back for a second dose of radiation. The technologist is also the person who has to get a frightened, injured or confused patient to hold a position — which is why this is a patient-care job as much as a technical one.
Projected need — and the wage is the headline
O*NET, on the federal projections: 228,000 employed (2024), growth average (3–4%), 12,900 openings a year, median wages $80,110 (2025).
61% of employers name an associate degree as the usual entry, 32% a bachelor's, 4% a high school diploma. ⚠⚠ An $80,110 median on a two-year degree is among the best wage-to-training ratios anywhere on this site — behind dental hygiene's $98,100 and respiratory therapy's $82,280 — — above the electronics engineering technician, above every trade, and roughly $16,000 above the LPN credential that takes about the same time. That is the reason to look at this field, and the competitive admission below is the reason it stays true.
⚠⚠⚠ Florida CERTIFIES this work — and there are two different certificates
Unlike most technical occupations on this site, you may not do this work in Florida without a state certificate. Section 468.302, Florida Statutes: a person may not use radiation or otherwise practice radiologic technology … unless he or she is a licensed practitioner, is the holder of a certificate … and is operating under the direct supervision or general supervision of a licensed practitioner, or is the holder of a radiologist assistant certificate. The Department of Health issues the certificates, and the categories are separate credentials with separate scopes:
- General radiographer — the full credential, entitled to use the letters CRT-R. This is what the two-year programmes lead to and what this page describes.
- ⚠ Basic X-ray machine operator — a limited certificate for general diagnostic radiographic and fluoroscopic procedures, on a much shorter departmentally approved course of study. It is a real job, commonly in physician offices and clinics, and it is not the same credential.
- Radiation therapy technologist, nuclear medicine technologist, limited computed tomography technologist and radiologist assistant — separate certificates for separate modalities.
⚠ Ask any programme which certificate its graduates are eligible for, and confirm the current requirements with the Department of Health rather than with a recruiter. The distinction decides what equipment you may operate and, in practice, what you are paid.
⚠⚠ The national credential, and the degree rule inside it
The national registry is the ARRT, and its primary eligibility pathway has three parts — education, ethics and examination. The education requirement is where students get caught, and the ARRT's own handbook is explicit about it:
- Complete your ARRT-verified educational program — so the programme itself must be recognised. Programme accreditation, generally through JRCERT, is what makes that true; verify it with the accrediting agency, not the college's brochure.
- ⚠⚠ Earn an associate (or higher) degree, in any subject, from an educational institution accredited by an agency ARRT recognizes. The handbook adds that you may earn the degree before, after, or while you complete an educational program in your discipline — but you must earn your degree and submit your application no more than three years after completing an educational program.
⚠ Two useful consequences. An existing degree in anything at all already satisfies half the requirement — which matters to career changers. And if you complete a certificate-style programme without a degree, the three-year clock is a real deadline, not a formality.
⚠ Selective admission is the part nobody warns students about
Florida awards 425 credentials a year across 23 public institutions, and 349 of them are associate degrees at 22 institutions — Valencia 65, Miami Dade 39, Palm Beach State 32, FSCJ 24, Hillsborough 24, Broward 22. Those are small cohorts.
What follows from that, and from the clinical structure:
- Enrolling at the college is not being admitted to the programme. You take the prerequisites first and then apply, usually once a year, against more applicants than places.
- ⚠ The sequence is cohort-locked. Courses run once a year in order, with clinical placements arranged around them, so failing one course delays you by a year rather than a term — and may require re-application.
- ⚠⚠ Clinical hours are hospital hours. Placements follow the hospital's schedule, can be some distance away, and require Level 2 background screening, immunisations, TB and drug screening and CPR certification arranged weeks in advance.
- Short certificates in this series are mostly advanced modalities — computed tomography, mammography, interventional — taken by people who are already registered. They are the next step, not the first one.
Necessary skills
- Anatomy, spatially. You are aiming at structures you cannot see, from the outside, on a body that is not shaped like the textbook.
- Physics you actually use — exposure factors, attenuation, the inverse square law, and what each adjustment does to dose and to image quality.
- Radiation protection. For the patient, the public and yourself; this is the part the law is written about.
- ⚠ Calm with difficult patients. Trauma, paediatrics, dementia, pain — and the image still has to be right.
- Attention to the record. Wrong patient, wrong side and wrong examination are the errors the whole quality system exists to prevent.
Advice
- ⚠ Verify JRCERT accreditation with the accrediting agency before you apply, and ask the programme for its ARRT first-attempt pass rate and its job-placement rate. Accredited programmes publish these.
- Take the prerequisites seriously — anatomy and physiology, medical terminology and college algebra are where the admission ranking is decided, and repeating one costs a year.
- ⚠⚠ Plan the modality after you register. CT, MRI, mammography, interventional and ultrasound all pay above general radiography, and they are post-primary credentials built on this one. The technologists earning the most in Florida hold two or three.
- Expect shift work. Imaging departments run nights, weekends and holidays; the differentials are real and so is the schedule.
- Florida's employers are the large hospital systems and their outpatient networks — AdventHealth, Orlando Health, BayCare, Baptist, HCA, Tampa General, plus freestanding imaging centres and orthopaedic practices. ⚠ An ageing population is why the work is steady here even though national growth is only average.
A program is a field of study, one level above a degree — each page says which degrees it
covers and which Florida institutions award them. ⚠ The count is institutions that
awarded a credential in the field in 2023;
it is not a promise that a school runs this exact degree, and it counts something different
from the course-based list further down.
Programs worth knowing about if you are considering this career — ⚠ they do
not lead to it. Each row says what it is and is not.
Careers filed under the same broad field in the federal classification
(HEALTH PROFESSIONS AND RELATED PROGRAMS) — often they share early coursework, and each row says which group it is filed in.
⚠ Worth reading BEFORE you commit: switching between neighbours is cheap early and
expensive late.
Selected, not exhaustive — the courses specific to this path plus the foundations it is built on.
A course number does not identify a course in Florida: always check your own
institution's catalog and take a syllabus to an adviser.
HSC0003
—Basic Healthcare Worker
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Basic Healthcare Worker — 55 institutions, the most widely carried course in the state and the usual first step into a health programme.
HSC1531
—Medical Terminology
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Medical Terminology — 16 institutions. A prerequisite for most radiography admissions, and the vocabulary every requisition and report is written in.
BSC2085
—Anatomy and Physiology I
Guide
Anatomy and Physiology I — 20 institutions. ⚠ The course selective admission is usually ranked on, and the one this job is built from: you are aiming at anatomy you cannot see.
⚠ ⚠ Two equivalent packagings: BSC2085 plus a separate laboratory at 20 institutions, or the integrated BSC2085C at 7. Where your college splits them, enrol in both halves.
RTE1000
—Introduction to Radiologic Technology
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Introduction to Radiologic Science and Health Care — 17 institutions, the first course of the programme: the profession, ethics, patient care and radiation safety.
RTE1503C
—Radiographic Procedures I
Guide
Radiographic Procedures I — positioning for the chest, abdomen and extremities. The craft of the job starts here.
⚠ ⚠ Florida packages this course three ways and no college carries more than one: the lecture with a separate laboratory, or the integrated C form. Both cover the same ground and both complete the requirement — but where your college splits it, enrol in BOTH halves; they are corequisites.
RTE1513C
—Radiographic Procedures II
Guide
Radiographic Procedures II — spine, pelvis, skull and contrast studies, with the laboratory practice that makes them automatic.
⚠ ⚠ Florida packages this course three ways and no college carries more than one: the lecture with a separate laboratory, or the integrated C form. Both cover the same ground and both complete the requirement — but where your college splits it, enrol in BOTH halves; they are corequisites.
RTE1418
—Principles of Radiographic Exposure I
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Principles of Radiographic Imaging and Exposure — 15 institutions: the physics you use every day, and the trade-off between dose and image quality.
RTE2385
—Radiation Biology and Protection
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Radiation Biology and Protection — 16 institutions. ⚠ What radiation does to tissue and how the protection rules follow from it; this is the legal and ethical core of the certificate.
RTE2563
—Advanced Medical Imaging
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Principles of Radiography III — 13 institutions: digital imaging, quality control and equipment.
RTE2782
—Radiographic Pathology
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Radiographic Pathology — 14 institutions. What disease looks like on an image, and why the radiologist asked for that particular view.
RTE1804
—Clinical Education I
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Clinical Education I — the first hospital rotation, at 12 institutions. ⚠ This is where the programme becomes a job with a college attached.
⚠ ⚠⚠ A clinical course: hours are spent in a hospital imaging department on its schedule, not the college's. Reckon on roughly three contact hours per credit per week rather than the classroom convention, and expect background screening, immunisations, drug screening and current CPR certification to be required BEFORE the first rotation.
RTE1814
—Clinical Education II
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Clinical Education II — the second rotation, 13 institutions, with a widening range of examinations performed under supervision.
⚠ ⚠⚠ A clinical course: hours are spent in a hospital imaging department on its schedule, not the college's. Reckon on roughly three contact hours per credit per week rather than the classroom convention, and expect background screening, immunisations, drug screening and current CPR certification to be required BEFORE the first rotation.
RTE1824
—Clinical Education III
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Clinical Education III — 12 institutions; by now you are producing diagnostic images on real patients to a standard.
⚠ ⚠⚠ A clinical course: hours are spent in a hospital imaging department on its schedule, not the college's. Reckon on roughly three contact hours per credit per week rather than the classroom convention, and expect background screening, immunisations, drug screening and current CPR certification to be required BEFORE the first rotation.
RTE2844
—Clinical Education V
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Clinical Education IV — the final rotation at 14 institutions, and the competencies it documents are what the registry examination assumes you have.
⚠ ⚠⚠ A clinical course: hours are spent in a hospital imaging department on its schedule, not the college's. Reckon on roughly three contact hours per credit per week rather than the classroom convention, and expect background screening, immunisations, drug screening and current CPR certification to be required BEFORE the first rotation.
RTE2061
—Radiographic Seminar
Guide
Radiographic Seminar — 18 institutions, the most widely carried course in the prefix: the capstone review that prepares you to sit the ARRT examination.
77 Florida public institutions teach courses on this path. The count is
how many of the 15 listed courses each one carries — it shows where
the path is best covered. It is not a statement that a school offers this as a
degree; for that, check the institution’s own programme list.
Requirements change. These are the authorities that decide them — check them directly before
committing to a route.