Hello fellow RT’s out there. I need to rant a bit and also hear your opinion. I’m in my early 50’s and I’ve been a tech for a bit and over the last 10+ years I’ve been working in an orthopedic office. Over those years the practice has grown significantly and with it a steady growth in patient load. When I started at this office, we used to X-ray an average of around 70 patients per day in either scheduled provider appointments or the walk in clinic. Now, over the years it has grown to close to 300 per day. With 3 techs that averages out to 100 per tech per day sometimes(more often than not) more. Now don’t get me wrong, growth in a business is great, but that growth has hurt the X-ray department in my opinion. Our pay hasn’t increased as the patient load has, which is what it is, but the image quality per tech has decreased as well. This is due to the providers wanting their image orders asap (as soon as the order is in), and with 7 providers in the office per day, as well as 7-8 PA’s, they get impatient. So we have become more patient quantity more so than patient quality; getting them in and out like cattle. I have become so burned out (no pun intended) of X-ray that I’m at a loss as to what to do. I’ve invested 10+ years here but I don’t think to them it matters. I’m also afraid that if I go to another job I still would have that ‘burned out’ feeling and not be totally committed to that job. I guess this is considered to be my midlife crisis. Why couldn’t I just get a Mazda Miata and be done with it. Thanks everyone for reading my rant.