Jim de Jong

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Member for

1 year 5 weeks

Profile

Country and place of work

CT Department, Ballarat Health Services, Ballarat, Victoria, Australia

How long have you been a radiographer?

30+ years.

Where did you train?

External studies with Royal Melbourne Institute of Radiography, Post Graduate Diploma Computing at University of Ballarat.

How long was your training?

4 years.

What do you enjoy most about your job?

Happy patients and attaining examination goals.

What is the most challenging/difficult part of your job and why?

Patients that are frightened or traumatised before they reach me by what others have said or they imagine will happen.

How many patients do you help each week approximately?

150

What is the most memorable or happiest moment of your radiography career and why?

When patients are moved to make contact because they have appreciated what we have done for them.

If you could change or improve one thing about your working life, what would it be?

I am happy doing what I am doing and hope to continue doing it. Any changes are minor ones. I hope to continue to develop my teaching.

Have you ever worked as a radiographer outside your home country? If not, have you considered it?

I have not worked overseas, but fully intend to do so though I am unsure in what capacity I could be useful.

What advice would you give to someone thinking about becoming a radiographer?

I ask them to make sure they like patients and people. In a technologically advanced environment where equipment requires advanced computer skills the patient must still be the focus.

How do you see the role of the radiographer/technologist developing in the future?

When I trained CT had hardly been invented and certainly wasn’t included in my course. I have no idea what radiographers will be doing in the future, except that it will be beyond our imagination today. Whether radiographers can develop their role into these new futures as opportunities arise depends on their adaptability, courage and dedication to primary objectives.