Nuc med to nuc power

[Higgs]

I have a friend who is worried about his job security under Obamacare. Currently, he works as a Nuclear Medicine Technologist/ Radiological Technologist, and is certified by ARRT and CNMT, and has a Bachelors degree in Radiological Science and a certificate degree in Nuclear Medicine.

He asked me if this can transfer to our industry, but I just don't know, so I thought I would ask the experts here. I gave him the link to the site, but I'm not sure he'll creat an account. Any direction that I could give him would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Justin

[Starkist]

Not sure if it transposes from the civilian world, but there is a former RHO member on here who became an NLO relatively easily. I don't think he's been on for a while, but I'll send him a PM, see if he can chime in.

[navynukedoc]

Well I hope you weren't referring to me because I am in RP not Ops (I can't sit still for that long!) But just in case,

I was a HP tech in the navy. So I worked a lot with the nucmed techs. I got into nuke power as an Rp tech. It took me about a year to qual as a 3.1 ANSI from an 18.1 ANSI tech. So if you have experience with meters and Radiation Protection, and can make the transition flow on your resume, you could possibly get in to an outage as a Jr. tech or an 18.1 depending on your experience. It's all relative to the person reviewing your resume. I say submit it to big blue (Bartlett), or DZ Atlantic and see where you go from there. Outages is where you'd most likely get started.

It may be a pay drop. but it is always better than waiting for "Obama-stamps"!

Good Luck,

-Doc

[retired nuke]

Funny,
When VY was going thru relicensing, and it looked bad, I was looking at what it would take to swap to nuke med....

Under current conditions in the nuclear power world... your friend sounds like a very qualified nuke med tech, with certs and education. Probbly more opportunity staying there, and changing employers than trying to jump into a no longer growing industry.

JMHO

[Higgs]

Funny,
When VY was going thru relicensing, and it looked bad, I was looking at what it would take to swap to nuke med....

Under current conditions in the nuclear power world... your friend sounds like a very qualified nuke med tech, with certs and education. Probbly more opportunity staying there, and changing employers than trying to jump into a no longer growing industry.

JMHO

Good points, he said something about 85 million cut for the facilities and personnel in his line of work, which is why he is worried.

Justin

[SloGlo]

back in the day, when tex were airborne and tmi hadn't popped yet, i new a nuc med tech who did the jump two outage hp.  he had no probs, last i heard he had gone house at nine mile, maybe it was fitz.  that was moor than a couple of decades ago, he's probably retired with his feet in the carrybean.  any weigh, tell your friend to polish up the resume and submit to the job shoppers if he wants to do outages.  if he wants to go house at a plant, that may be more problematic as the new ones are few, far between, and ferocious fighting at the in door to hp.

[milo124]

Funny,
When VY was going thru relicensing, and it looked bad, I was looking at what it would take to swap to nuke med....

Under current conditions in the nuclear power world... your friend sounds like a very qualified nuke med tech, with certs and education. Probbly more opportunity staying there, and changing employers than trying to jump into a no longer growing industry.

JMHO

I recall doing the same thing until the med tech school I was looking into told me what it would cost (ouch).  I also couldn't tell you how many times I've run a job search for RCTs and had to wade through mostly job posts for Radiological Techs/X-ray techs.  So I'd have to agree - with his quals he would most likely have more opportunity on the medical side.

[DTOD]

I have an 18 year old grand daughter who asked me what I thought she should get a 2 year degree in if the 3 most important things were decent pay, job security, and a job that I thought she could be good at doing? I asked her to give me a few days to think about it and after doing about 12 hours of research, my best answer based on a 10 year projection, (mostly Department of Labor stats) was Diagnostic Medical Sonographer or Speech Pathologist with 30% projected growth rate, 40-50,000 projected new jobs and pay scale of $55-75k . In all, the broad field of Nuclear Medicine had projections for 100-200,000 new jobs created. I didn't see any other fields that were in the same ballpark as these projections. If I told her to be a HPT, job growth was 1-5,000 positions for a 10-20% job growth rate with similar projected earnings. Also, a large percentage of the HPT positions are temporary and require the individual to adopt a nomadic lifestyle in order to work full time.
I also considered that I have been in Radiation Protection for over 30 years and that I have never had any problem finding a job in this business for somebody with the applicable A/S and that my connections would be of very little use to her with an A/S in the medical field. And then I thought about the things that were missing from my grand daughter's criteria - like job satisfaction because the work you are doing matters on a very personal level; and I told her to get into the medical field. Increasing government involvement in medical care will create more havoc, but hospitals and good people to staff them will always be needed.     

[alasfreedom]

I have a friend who is worried about his job security under Obamacare. Currently, he works as a Nuclear Medicine Technologist/ Radiological Technologist, and is certified by ARRT and CNMT, and has a Bachelors degree in Radiological Science and a certificate degree in Nuclear Medicine.

He asked me if this can transfer to our industry, but I just don't know, so I thought I would ask the experts here. I gave him the link to the site, but I'm not sure he'll creat an account. Any direction that I could give him would be appreciated.

Thanks!

Justin

I'm an example of the answer... No.  Regardless of level of degree in Nuc Med, R.T. (ARRT) & CNMT (NMTCB) creds. are not recognized by the gen power industry.  Tell your friend he'll have to start at the bottom like most DECONers (or similar Outage workers), or go back to school, as I am doing, for Radiation Protection and/or Health Physics specifically teaching nuc. gen. power RPT/HP curriculum.