Missing imageImagine this... You arrive at work and start your day off normally, you notice that it's going pretty well. During portable exams, you are called to perform a routine portable chest x-ray on the patient in room 745. You immediately go to that patient's room, without any known name or date of birth of that particular patient. While you converse with the patient and get a brief history, you begin the exam. After you finish, you return to the ward where another technician points out that they accidentally gave you the wrong patient room number. You undoubtedly ignore the incident and erase the images on the imaging plate, then proceed to the correct patient room number and finish the images for the original radiographic order. As a radiological technologist, one of the most important things to consider when dealing with ionizing radiation is reducing the dose to the patient. Repetitions are the main cause of patient dose, and unnecessary radiation to a patient is also another. In the example above, the radiology technician did not verify the room number with the other technician who provided the information. This resulted in unnecessary patient exposure to radiation. Several ethical codes and rules have been ignored in this scenario. According to the ARRT ethical standards, “the Code of Ethics is ambitious” (American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, 2014, pg.1). This simply means that technologists improve themselves to become even better than before. The above scenario includes ethics codes 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Ethics code 1 describes the technologist acting professionally and responding to patient needs. In this scenario the technologist not only did not verify the name and date of birth, but he or... in the middle of the paper... gave the room number. The technologist who took the image should have acquired the patient's name and date of birth instead of ignoring them. In the healthcare field, many patients come and go. Radiological technologists are educated on the harmful effects of radiation; therefore, it is important for them to reduce the dose to the patient as much as possible through communication. Lead shields are provided by the hospital and used by technicians, but consciously a technician should be aware of reducing the dose to the patient through step by step processes. As medical professionals it is our obligation to verify the name and date of birth of each patient. This simple step will reduce the number of unnecessary radiation exposures. Works Cited American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (2012). Retrieved from https://www.arrt.org/pdfs/Government-Documents/Standards-of-Ethics.pdf