That kind of excitement can ignite new passion in a veteran nurse, Suppenbach said.
"I think it is something that nurses later in their careers should consider; it's a great opportunity to learn again, to get jazzed again," she said.
Radiology nursing, Suppenbach said, is a field for veteran nurses.
"I want (in the radiology department) someone with experience, someone who is a little bit seasoned. We have many emergencies to deal with, and you really need (nurses with) some critical care background," she said.

Other desirable qualities? "You have to be able to multi-task, to problem solve; you are constantly evaluating," Suppenbach said.

At KU Hospital, nurses new to radiology receive several weeks of orientation and training: from six to eight weeks if they are new to the hospital, four to five weeks if they are coming from inside. All three radiology nurses said that stress is part of the job, but it is a stress different from that experienced in other nursing specialties. "I think it's more of a busy kind of stress," Schwartz said. "We see so many patients."
"It's a different kind of intensity (from other areas of nursing)," Earp said.

Radiology nurses employ all the general tools of nursing, Suppenbach said. "The typical routine is the patient comes in and you visually try to assess what is going on. We do that, too, we see the outside - but - then we also see the patients from the inside out and that is what makes this so very, very interesting," she said.

"I think it is just great," Schwartz said.

To see the original story, click here: Radiology Nursing - Working with ALL Modalities

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