RTE1418C – Principles of Radiographic Exposure I is a first-year course in Florida's Radiography (Radiologic Technology) A.S. curriculum, combining lecture with integrated laboratory. It is where a radiography student learns to make a diagnostic image on purpose rather than by protocol — how X-rays are produced, what each exposure factor does, and how to reason from an unacceptable image back to the setting that caused the problem.
The content begins with X-ray production and the primary exposure factors: milliamperage (mA), exposure time (s), and kilovoltage peak (kVp), along with source-to-image distance. Students learn what each controls and how they interact — the mAs relationship governing receptor exposure, kVp governing beam quality and subject contrast, and the inverse square law governing intensity with distance.
From there the course examines the image quality factors: density or receptor exposure, contrast, recorded detail or spatial resolution, and distortion (size and shape). Each is traced back to the technical factors and geometry that produce it. Ancillary equipment gets substantial treatment — grids and their effect on scatter and patient dose, beam filtration, collimation, and automatic exposure control.
Because Florida programs are now entirely digital, the course covers digital radiography directly: computed and direct radiography receptors, the exposure indicator, post-processing, and the particular hazard of digital imaging — that overexposure produces a perfectly acceptable-looking image while delivering unnecessary dose to the patient. In film, overexposure was visible. In digital it is not, which makes exposure discipline a matter of professional ethics rather than image quality.
Radiation protection is woven throughout via ALARA. Every discussion of exposure factors carries a patient dose implication.
Offered at approximately 22 Florida institutions with accredited radiography programs, including Broward, College of Central Florida, Daytona State, Eastern Florida State, Florida State College at Jacksonville, Florida SouthWestern, Gulf Coast State, Hillsborough, Indian River State, Miami Dade, Northwest Florida State, Pensacola State, Pasco-Hernando, Santa Fe, South Florida State, State College of Florida, St. Johns River, St. Petersburg, Tallahassee State, and Valencia.
Florida employers include AdventHealth, Orlando Health, BayCare, Baptist Health, Memorial Healthcare, Tampa General, Lee Health, and a very large freestanding imaging center sector. Demand is supported by the state's older population and correspondingly high imaging utilization.
Credit values differ meaningfully for this course. Florida State College at Jacksonville lists it at 3 credits with a lecture-plus-laboratory structure; State College of Florida lists its equivalent at 5 credits. The 3-credit integrated form recorded here is the more common pattern, with roughly 60 contact hours reflecting the combined lecture and lab typical of a "C" designated course. Students transferring between Florida radiography programs should confirm the credit value, and program directors evaluating transfer credit should compare contact hours rather than credit counts.
The SCNS title is Principles of Radiographic Exposure I, but institutions publish it as Radiographic Technique I (FSCJ), Radiographic Exposures I (State College of Florida), and Radiographic Imaging I among others. The course also appears as both RTE1418 and RTE1418C, the C form indicating the integrated laboratory. Under SCNS these are equivalent at the same level.
There is generally no course-level prerequisite beyond admission to the radiography program — but that admission is selective and competitive at essentially every Florida institution. Programs are limited-access with a fixed cohort size driven by clinical placement capacity, and typically require prerequisite general education (anatomy and physiology, algebra, English), a minimum GPA, a background check, drug screening, immunizations, and healthcare provider CPR. Waitlists of a year or more are common. Prospective students should treat program admission, not this course, as the planning problem.
Graduates of a JRCERT-accredited program are eligible for the ARRT certification examination in Radiography. Separately, Florida requires state licensure through the Department of Health, Bureau of Radiation Control, to practice as a radiologic technologist — this is a state licensure requirement, not merely an employer preference, and is distinct from ARRT certification. Both are normally required for employment.
This is a first-year course, usually taken alongside radiographic procedures and patient care, and it is prerequisite to Principles of Radiographic Exposure II and to radiation biology and protection. Its content is heavily represented on the ARRT examination's image production section.
Worth stating plainly for students: film was self-policing, because an overexposed film looked wrong. A digital receptor will render an overexposed image beautifully while the patient absorbed dose that produced no diagnostic benefit. The exposure indicator is the only routine signal that this happened, and ignoring it produces "exposure creep" — a documented, gradual drift toward higher doses across a department. The technical content of this course is, in practice, the mechanism by which a technologist protects patients.
Generated August 31, 2026 · Updated August 31, 2026