A career in nuclear medicine

Abstract

John Frank explains why nuclear medicine has become a major imaging specialty, crucial to both diagnosis and therapy, and offers a guide to becoming a part of it Nuclear medicine is the branch of imaging that uses radio-isotopes to study the physiology and metabolism of the body (rather than the anatomy shown by x rays, computed tomography (CT), ultrasound, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)). Nuclear medicine today is the exciting development of the early 20th century pioneering work of, among others, Rutherford, the Curies, and Lawrence, who built the first cyclotron in 1933. With all the new isotopes and radiopharmaceuticals we now have available, there is huge scope for advances in the field. If you are the sort of person who would enjoy the challenge of working in a rapidly developing multicraft specialty, then you may well be a candidate for a national training number (NTN) in nuclear medicine. It also helps to be computer literate. There have been many recent advances in nuclear medicine, but without doubt the most exciting is the development of positron emission tomography (PET) imaging, and in particular PET/CT. This has revolutionised oncological imaging, and ideally no major cancer centre should be without PET. Nuclear medicine, being essentially physiological, correlates well with all other forms of imaging, which are mainly anatomical. We can show the activity of disease rather than the anatomical appearance. For example, in Crohn's disease the barium enema will show what the bowel looks like, but the labelled white cell scan will show the extent of activity. It's a vital tool for the clinician. There is therefore a huge interaction with the rest of imaging, the clinicians and the oncologists. Box 1 shows a typical week in nuclear medicine. ### Box 1: A typical week in nuclear medicineRETURN TO TEXT