RTE1503L – Radiographic Procedures I Lab is the laboratory corequisite to the first positioning course in a Florida radiography program. It is a 1-credit, 32-contact-hour course — roughly two clock hours per credit, which is the standard ratio for health-program laboratories and the reason a 1-credit lab occupies a two- or three-hour block on the schedule.
This is where positioning begins. The paired lecture course teaches anatomy, projection terminology, and technical factors; the laboratory is where a student actually places a phantom or a classmate in position, aligns the tube, collimates, selects exposure factors, produces an image, and evaluates whether it meets diagnostic criteria — then repeats until it does.
Procedures I typically covers the anatomy and positioning a student will encounter first and most often in clinical: the chest, which is the highest-volume examination in radiography; the abdomen; the upper extremity — hand, wrist, forearm, elbow, humerus, and shoulder girdle; and the lower extremity — foot, ankle, tibia and fibula, knee, and femur. Institutions distribute content across Procedures I, II, and III differently, so verify locally.
The work centers on competency demonstration: students are checked off on each projection against a defined standard, and on image critique — evaluating an image for positioning accuracy, anatomy demonstrated, technique, and artifacts, which is a graded skill in its own right.
Offered at approximately 12 Florida institutions with JRCERT-accredited radiography programs.
Broward College's radiography table gives exact figures, and the pattern is consistent across the whole RTE curriculum — lecture runs about 16 contact hours per credit while laboratory runs about 32, and clinical runs far higher still:
| Course | Credits | Contact hours | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| RTE1111 Introduction to Radiographic Patient Care | 3 | 48 | Lecture |
| RTE1111L | 1 | 32 | Laboratory |
| RTE1503 / RTE1513 / RTE1523 Procedures I–III | 3 each | 48 each | Lecture |
| RTE1503L / RTE1513L / RTE1523L | 1 each | 32 each | Laboratory |
| RTE1804 / RTE1814 / RTE1824 Clinical | 2 each | 256 each | Clinical |
A 2-credit clinical course occupying 256 hours is the extreme case, and it is why students building a schedule from credit counts alone badly underestimate a radiography term. The same rule holds in nursing (NUR1020L, 2 cr / 112 hrs), dental hygiene (DEH2806L, 4 cr / 192 hrs), and sonography. Compare contact hours, never credits.
The lab must normally be taken with its lecture course, and in most programs a failing grade in either requires repeating both. In a cohort-based sequential program that means waiting a full year for the sequence to come around again, which is why the checkoffs deserve the highest priority of the term.
Chest radiography accounts for a very large share of all radiographic examinations performed, so this is the projection a student will do more than any other for the rest of their career. Rotation, scapular positioning, inspiration, and collimation on a chest are assessed strictly for that reason. Time spent getting the chest genuinely right in Procedures I pays back through every clinical rotation.
Assessment is by performance checkoff: position correctly, set factors, protect the patient, produce an image meeting diagnostic criteria, and critique it. Studying the atlas is necessary but not sufficient — positioning is a psychomotor skill that improves only with repetition, and programs provide open lab time precisely so students can get it.
Producing an image and evaluating one are different competencies, and students often neglect the second. The professional habit is to look at every image against its diagnostic criteria before releasing it, decide whether it is acceptable, and know specifically what to change if it is not — "rotate the patient 5 degrees toward the affected side," not "try again." That judgment is what separates a technologist from a button-pusher, and it starts here.
Practicing in Florida requires a Florida Department of Health certification through the Bureau of Radiation Control, separate from and additional to ARRT registration. Both are required and renew on different schedules.
Florida institutions distribute positioning content across RTE1503 (Procedures I), RTE1513 (Procedures II), and RTE1523 (Procedures III) differently, so material covered in RTE1503L at one college may appear in RTE1513L at another. Each carries a corresponding L laboratory at 1 credit and 32 contact hours. SCNS equivalency applies to the same number at the same level, never across numbers.
Generated August 31, 2026 · Updated August 31, 2026