Danny A. Basso, CNMT, NCT, FSNMTS, Chair, NMTCB
The board of directors of the Nuclear Medicine Technology Certification Board (NMTCB) is pleased to announce the appointment of Stanley J. Kalisch, PhD, to the post of executive director of the NMTCB. Dr. Kalisch brings a great deal of familiarity and expertise to the position, and he comes to the board with a broad background of certification and educational measurement experience. The board is confident that his experience and leadership will help guide us in this rapidly changing environment.
As I reported in the June JNMT, the NMTCB board voted at the spring meeting to eliminate the alternate eligibility route for the entry-level examination by the year 2015. The NMTCB board encourages any individuals who are seeking to qualify for the exam through the alternate eligibility pathway to do so as soon as possible.
Several other changes in eligibility requirements for the entry-level examination became effective in 2007:
1) Graduates of approved nuclear medicine technology educational programs must take the entry-level exam within five years of their official graduation date.
2) All requirements to sit for the entry-level exam must be completed within the five-year period immediately prior to the candidate's application, including the requirements for alternate eligibility.
3) Certificants who let their certification lapse for five years or more must meet current eligibility requirements and must successfully complete the entry-level exam in order to regain their certification.
These changes were made for two important reasons: to limit the amount of time a person could claim to be registry eligible and to assure that the technologists reentering the field have remained current.
PET and Nuclear Cardiology specialty examinations will be held on September 29 and October 6, respectively. We are looking forward to having over 200 individuals sit for each specialty examination. The NCT Exam Committee is moving forward with a plan to provide on-demand testing in 2008. We are still working out the logistics, but are looking forward to being able to provide that service.
The ASRT and the ARRT hosted a CT Consensus Conference in Albuquerque, NM on August 4. It was my honor to represent the NMTCB at this important meeting. It is imperative that imaging professionals come together periodically to discuss our ever-evolving fields. I will discuss the results of the meeting in the next issue of JNMT.
Advanced Practice News
NMTCB and the American Registry for Radiologic Technologists announced in a joint letter to SNMTS that we are delaying development of the certification program for the advanced practice role for nuclear medicine technologists. Both ARRT and NMTCB believe that there should be more than one educational program in operation to indicate growth in the direction needed before beginning work on a certification mechanism. We are concerned that the number of graduates generated by only one educational program will be insufficient to assure the viability of the role in practice and to support the development of a certification program. We have decided to delay the development until we are comfortable that there will be a sufficient number of certification candidates available. Although programs are likely to start with a small number of students, having multiple educational programs in operation will provide momentum to the concept and eventually will produce the critical mass of graduates needed to support a certification program.
