With safety-protected syringes and proper calibration techniques, students in Tarrant County College’s nuclear medicine technology program learn how to use small amounts of radioactive substances to diagnose and treat disease.
“It’s really more about physiology than anatomy. You can pour the patient and it’s almost like watching a movie of the patient,” said Vineet Patel, one of the students in the class. He was describing the imaging technique used in nuclear medicine, where they inject – flow – a patient with small amounts of a radioactive substance to see inside the body. “You see the blood flow. You see how well an organ works.”
There’s a whole list of reasons why Patel and other students are training to become nuclear medicine technicians. They want to enter a field that is growing. They like having a lot of patient interaction. And then, there’s the salary.
“I want steady income and money, not living paycheck to paycheck,” said Kim Bernal of Mansfield. She has three young children, and her husband and mother help with the children while she takes classes and works clinical rotations at a local hospital. “It’s for my children’s future.”
Bernal graduated from high school in 2010 and worked as a health care worker. When it was time for her to go back to school, she looked for a career that offered growth and money. The median annual salary in 2023 for nuclear medicine technologists is $92,500, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And there is growth.
“I can’t get enough graduate students and get them through fast enough,” said Tonya Pigulski, program director of the nuclear medicine technology program. “There is such a demand.”
The program is small, selective and demanding. About 50 TCC students who have taken the prerequisite courses apply each year. Fifteen are accepted and about 10 graduate. It’s just one program at TCC’s East Trinity River Campus Center for Health Care Professions, where there are classes in health information technology, diagnostic medical sonography and other growing fields.
“I think Texas is no different (than the rest of the country) in that the health care sector is expected to continue to have growing needs,” said Rahul Sreenivasan, a policy adviser with Texas 2036, a nonpartisan research and advocacy organization. for public policies. .
In a recent report, Texas 2036 projects that health care jobs in the state will grow by 8% from 2021 to 2026.
“Again, this reflects an aging population and increasing prevalence of chronic conditions,” Sreenivasan said.
Academic fields such as registered nursing, licensed practical nursing, emergency medical technology, biological sciences and psychology are among the top 20 fields in terms of students enrolled in Texas community colleges. At public universities in Texas, nursing, psychology, biology and kinesiology are among the top 10 fields in terms of enrollment, according to an April 2023 report from Texas 2036 on workforce trends.
At Tarleton State University in Fort Worth, which will open a new building this fall to house classrooms and labs for its College of Health Sciences, a needs assessment was conducted to help determine the programs it would offer. .
“It was really community research, community listening and looking at different data sets,” said Ramona Parker, executive dean of Tarleton’s College of Health Sciences. “We decided what programs to offer, from nursing to medical laboratory sciences, speech-language pathology and kinesiology, which could lead to physical therapy or occupational therapy.”
Parker said the university — both in Fort Worth and at its main Stephenville campus — is addressing the nursing shortage in rural areas.
“There are very few health care providers such as nurses, doctors, physical therapists and occupational therapists in these areas,” Parker said. “We just want to be part of that solution.”
Colleges and universities around Tarrant County are working to solve the nursing shortage. This fall, the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth will welcome its first cohort of students to its College of Nursing. This fall, they will provide a pathway for registered nurses to attain a bachelor of science degree in nursing. Next year, a general bachelor of science degree program in nursing is expected to launch.
The University of Texas at Arlington will also introduce an undergraduate rural health certificate this fall. UTA has also expanded facilities for social work and health care. In 2023, they opened a new Smart Hospital/School of Social Work building, with over 150,000 square meters of space.
In TCU’s Institute of Pre-Health Professions, enrollment has doubled over the past 10 years, and the university plans to introduce a public health major.
“We have an aging population, we have an aging health care workforce, and we have a declining number of people staying in health care for (the entire) trajectory of my predecessors,” said Sylvia Trent-Adams, president. of the UNT Health Science Center, who spoke at a recent event on college leadership.
Trent-Adams and other area higher education leaders are developing programs to educate their students for jobs in a growing industry.
Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open the campus. Contact him at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org.
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