Take a moment this week to celebrate a key tool in effective health care, the x-ray. This critical technology has become such a staple in health care, in fact, it’s difficult to imagine medicine – and our health – without it. Even if you’ve enjoyed relatively good health throughout your life, it’s likely that a radiologist has taken your picture more than once by passing radiant beams through parts of your body.
We have Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen to thank for this life-changing and life-saving tool. On Nov. 8, 1895, the German physics professor was experimenting with a Crookes tube, a sealed glass tube with two electrodes on either end, which he eventually used to produce the first x-ray image – his wife’s hand.
Nov. 8 has since become X-ray Discovery Day and the heart of National Radiologic Technology Week, Nov. 3-9. Roentgen named his finding the x-ray because “x” is the algebraic term for the unknown. Later, he became the first person to receive the Nobel Prize in physics, and millions of people have benefited from x-ray detection of tumors, dental cavities, broken bones and much more.
“When Roentgen discovered the x-ray in 1895, no one could have imagined the influence it would have on patient outcomes or the way care is delivered in 2013,” says Jean Schuster, RT, DMU radiology clinic manager. “Now, x-rays provide the basis for mammograms, CT and PET scans, nuclear medicine, cardiac stress tests and other imaging procedures that genuinely impact patient care.”
Jean and her colleagues at the DMU Clinic – all registered radiologic technologists – provide diagnostic x-rays, bone density testing and whole body composition analysis utilizing DXA, the gold-standard technology for assessing one’s total fat mass, total lean mass, and fat and lean mass for parts of the body such as each arm and leg and the trunk.
“We’re proud to offer these invaluable services, as members of the DMU health care team, that make possible more accurate and often faster detection, diagnosis and treatment of injury, illness and disease,” Jean adds.