Objective:

It’s aimed to reveal the areas in which technologists have inefficiency.

Methods:

The questionnaire is applied to 77 (32 women, 45 men) nuclear medicine technologists with a mean age of 37 (19-59), who are working at 11 different hospitals. The education of the staff was as follows; 6 (8%) high school, 57 (74%) undergraduate, 14 (18%) bachelors degree. 70 of them was working in state hospitals (91%), 7 (9%) working in private sector. 58 technologists (75%) were working at the imaging unit, 13 (17%) working at the laboratory and 6 (8%) working both imaging and laboratory. All hospitals were equipped with gamma cameras and PET/CT. There was SPECT/CT at 4 (36%), uptake device at 6 (55%), bone mineral densitometry at 2 (19%) centers.

Results:

46 technologists (60%) havent participated in any congress and/or educational activity. Almost all of the 31 technologists who have participated before (97%) declared that they benefited from the activities. 22 technologists (48%) who haven’t participated, declared that they haven’t heard about the congress or they weren’t invited to the congress/education. As a reason for their not participating, 9 technologists (20%) declared that they do not have time because of the workload and 3 technologists (7%) couldn’t participate because of economic reasons. The distribution of needs of the technologists for education are; 25 (32%) radiation safety, 14 (18%) imaging techniques and criteria, 8 (10%) up-to-date information, 7 (9%) employee rights, 3 (4%) patient-technologist relations. When we evaluated the opinions and the suggestions of the participants, it appeared that 57% wants free participation in congress and educational activities. 36% of the participants wished eliminating the shortage of staff and improvement of working conditions.

Conclusion:

It’s thought that technologists should be informed about congresses and educational activities in due time and their participation should be encouraged. Besides, technologists should acquire up to date information about imaging techniques and criteria, radiation safety and employee rights. As a result, patient-technologist cooperation will be improved and the efficiency of nuclear medicine techniques will increase.

Keywords: Education,nuclear medicine,technologist