duties of a radiation therapist? Pros and cons of becoming one?

[briannad]

Recently I decided that nursing isn't for me. I just graduated high school and will begin CC in august so I can transfer to a university. As I was planning out my dream to become a nurse, I realized I couldn't put up with certain things, such as catheters, handling urine and feces, and vomit. I have no problem touching body parts and dealing with other body secretions (blood, puss, etc.), its just those things specifically.

I was looking into becoming a radiation therapist. I've been watching videos and reading articles, but I cant really find anything besides RT's give patients radiation to kill cancer cells and tumors.

Can an RT or someone familiar with radiation therapy give me more insight on what it is like in this field? And besides seeing cancer patients, what are some cons?

[Castiela]

Hello,

former Radiation therapist now nurse here. I actually found being an Rt boring hence why being a nurse now. Depends what agency you work at will depend on what equipment you use, essentially rts line a patient up with external lasers which approximate internally where the Tumor is before delivering treatment. Treatment can be delivered internally (brachytherapy) or externally (X-rays or natural radioactive isotopes). There is a lot of imaging to verify bony landmarks. It is a very finicky field, you are often working within 1-2mm of accuracy depending on the location of the cancer. Our agencies had nurses on site to treat severe nausea, desquamation, or anxiety, however, we often did a lot of teaching regarding side effects. True that you don't work with blood, vomit, urine like as a nurse, but the worst skin breakdown/ fungating tumours I've ever seen was as an RT, and the smell can be worse than cdiff (FYI). After you have some experience on the floor, we had the option of working in treatment planning and scanning/ tattooing the patient or in creating the actual treatment plans. A lot of thr treatment plans are the same for the different cancers. Hopefully that helps?