Join Perth Children's Hospital's marvellous Medical Imaging team

PCH Medical Imaging Technologists Carly and Nadia

Perth Children’s Hospital’s (PCH) Medical Imaging department conducts over 56,000 examinations each year, spanning a wide range of cases and making children, young people and their parents and carers feel safe and comfortable during their visit.

Our specially trained paediatric radiology team is comprised of radiologists, nurses and medical imaging technologists.

They each play a crucial role in ensuring the best diagnosis and recovery for our patients at PCH and babies in the neonatal intensive care units at King Edward Memorial Hospital.

The team performs the highest quality imaging studies with a compassionate and child-friendly focus.

Meet our expert team

We caught up with two of our medical imaging technologists, Carly and Nadia, to find out more about their work. Nadia has worked with PCH and (the former) Princess Margaret Hospital for close to 15 years and Carly has worked at PCH for six years.

Carly

How did you get started in medical imaging?

It was the only career I could picture myself in at the time. It looked like the perfect balance between medical, health, science and math, so I took a risk and got lucky and found it was a job that I love. 

What’s the best thing about being part of the medical imaging technology team at PCH?

It’s too hard to narrow it down to one thing.

Not only do I get to work in a recently built state-of-the-art tertiary hospital, but I also get to use new medical imaging equipment.

I also work within an imaging team who not only prioritise the patient experience but also the technical aspects of the exam that are crucial to image optimisation and patient dose.

What are your career goals?

The radiographers at PCH are encouraged to continually develop their general x-ray skills and adapt to new situations and requirements.

I enjoy the clinical teaching and education side of the job and so I aspire to reach a supervisory/educational role in my career. 

What would you say to someone considering a career in this field?

Being a Medical Imaging Technologist at PCH is exciting and challenging. The workload varies daily and the shift work makes for a fun lifestyle. You also have opportunities to work independently and as part of a team and you get to help kids be brave every day.

In one sentence, describe what you love best about your job.

To know that I can make a difference to a child’s x-ray experience and make it fun instead of scary, is very rewarding.

At school, I knew I wanted to have a career where I could work in a hospital, although I was not entirely interested in nursing. I attended work experience with a physiotherapist and an occupational therapist, however, because I was in a country town, it didn’t extend as far as a radiographer.

I became interested in radiography and through research learnt that you could travel around Australia and the world in the same profession. Once I had finished university, I travelled all over Queensland in a locum position, so it has been a good decision.

We are generally like-minded individuals whose main objective is to treat the patient with compassion, respect and dignity.

Our hospital is new, open and inviting, with a lot of excellent x-ray equipment, which in turn promotes forward thinking and pushing boundaries to make it a positive patient experience.

I have always enjoyed the teaching and training aspect of this career. I am content in the ever-changing and growing department, so the only thing I would possibly enjoy more is sharing my experience through tutoring others.

Generally, in medicine there is always change, however radiography is at the forefront of growth and change due to new equipment and better ways of performing images with this equipment. 

In paediatrics, this focus is even more prominent as we are all about patient care and experience.  There is a high expectation on radiographers to be knowledgeable and highly capable.

I love the relationship that you can generate with a patient and their parent or carer after a positive radiology experience. Returning patients often request a particular radiographer, which makes the whole job worthwhile.