Repairing Your Fortress Of Medical Imaging Knowledge With The CQR

Imagine your knowledge of medical imaging is a fortress. The foundation is safety and patient care. From there you build upon it the knowledge of your specific modality, including the procedures you run for scans. The flags flying at the top are indicators of the things you take pride in: your specialty, your institution, and yourself. But over the years of use, you have become relaxed about maintaining your fortress. While some areas are strong, others are less so. The walls, though they still stand, have a few weak points due to the mortar failing around certain bricks. Would you tear down the entire structure and start again? No. You are not asked to return to school and start over, just as you would not dismiss all the expertise you have gained through your career.

The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT) does not require a full recertification process in making you sit for the board exam again. Nor would you build a second wall around the first, strengthening all points without discrimination through general continuing education courses. Similarly, you would not ignore the faulty areas and only reinforce strong points, just as you should not take continuing education courses on things you already know very well. Instead, the proper approach is to address the integrity of the weak points specifically and reinforce the fortress as a whole. Much like an inspector coming in to evaluate the fortress, the continuing qualifications requirements (CQR) asks you to identify those weak points through the self-assessment tool, and then reinforce them with targeted continuing education courses. The CQR seeks to help technologists identify gaps in their knowledge and cognitive skills through formative assessment. The ARRT understands that technologists need to stay up to date on their abilities because there may be gaps that form through nonapplication. All medical imaging professionals are tasked with earning a minimum of 24 credits on continuing education every two years to ensure the appropriate maintenance is spent on their individual fortress of medical imaging knowledge.

Where the professional spends that maintenance is up to the CQR self-assessment, which assigns continuing education courses based on the results each individual receives. But why is it important to identify the shortcomings in one’s knowledge and fill them in? Why allow an inspector to come in to assess the fortress? Consider a scenario in which you run a scan on a patient, and due to a lack of familiarity with the instrumentation, software, or tested anatomy, you fail to recognize an artefact or warping on the image. It is processed and the radiologist, upon seeing the artefact, misdiagnoses the patient, who then undergoes additional testing either of the same or a different modality. An oversight on your part has led to undue physical and mental stress on the part of the patient, as well as financial strain.

Those flags on your fortress are becoming frayed. The quality of your institution, your colleagues, and your own respectability as a medical imaging professional may be considered subpar. No one wants this scenario to occur. Ever-vigilant, the ARRT has devised the CQR as a tool to inspect your fortress and find the weak points. The first period of the CQR is now open. All radiologic technologists who became certified in 2011 have until 2021 to prove compliance of the CQR. The period begins the last three years of the 10-year time window, so from 2018 to 2021.

1. Sign a participant agreement.
2. Create a professional profile detailing the amount of procedures performed.
3. Take a structured self- assessment to measure knowledge and ability.
4. Interpret assessment results.
5. Complete prescribed CQR continuing education for additional training to prove knowledge to practice.
6. Compliance of CQR complete for another 10 years.

Each professional is required annually in their birth month to renew certification and registration for their primary technology by proving compliance with the ARRT Rules and Regulations and ARRT Standards of Ethics. In addition, each radiologic technologist must maintain compliance with the biennium reporting period by earning 24 continuing education credits. The biennium is defined as the two-year period beginning the first day of the birth month to the last day of the month prior to the birth month.