Inject a tiny radioactive tracer, then image how the body works, not just how it looks. A 2 to 4 year program and one national exam.
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Pay, the path, pros and cons and the facts on one printable page. Good for a wall or a guidance counsellor.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$83,000
New grad
$62,000
Senior or PET (positron emission tomography)
$106,000
Job Bank's national median is $40 an hour, about $83,000 a year full time. Job Bank pools all medical radiation technologists (X-ray, nuclear medicine, radiation therapy and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging)) under one code, so this is the figure for the whole group. Nuclear medicine sits in the middle to upper part of it.
$30 to $36 an hour
About $62,000 to $75,000 a year at full-time hours
Union hospital grids in Ontario, Alberta and BC start near the top of this. Private clinics can be a little lower.
$48 to $51 an hour
Roughly $100,000 or more with on-call and premiums
Big hospitals run nuclear medicine on-call for emergencies like blood clots in the lung. Callback pay adds up.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
The low end is a two year accredited college program at the cheaper end, plus books, uniforms, immunizations and a police check, the CAMRT (Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists) exam and your first year of provincial registration. The high end is a four year joint college and university degree at higher tuition with the same fees on top. Registration is an annual cost for as long as you work, not a one time payment. Clinical placements are part of the program and are usually unpaid, so plan for a stretch with little income.
Roughly $12,000 to $35,000 in tuition. Joint college and university degrees cost more and take 4 years.
Defined-benefit pension
HOOPP (the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) in Ontario hospitals. Similar plans elsewhere.
Extended health and dental
On-call and shift premiums
Less overnight work than X-ray, but some.
Paid vacation and sick days
Typically 3 to 4 weeks to start.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
One discipline of medical radiation technology, with its own program and exam.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Grade 12 physics, chemistry, biology, math and English. Chemistry matters more here than in X-ray.
Accredited nuclear medicine program
2 to 4 years
A college diploma or a joint college-university degree. Radiation physics, radiopharmacy (preparing the tracers), anatomy, patient care, then months of full-time unpaid clinical placement. Some programs want a year of university science first.
Write the CAMRT (Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists) exam
After graduation
The national certification exam. Nuclear medicine is written on the second day of each sitting, in January, May and September.
Register with your provincial regulator
A few weeks
In Ontario that is the CMRITO (College of Medical Radiation and Imaging Technologists of Ontario).
Chemistry
Required. You prepare radioactive drugs by hand.
Physics
Required. Radioactive decay, detectors and shielding.
Biology
Required. You image organs working.
Math
Dose calculations and half-lives, every single day.
Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, PEI and Newfoundland and Labrador register medical radiation technologists. Ontario's CMRITO (College of Medical Radiation and Imaging Technologists of Ontario) covers five specialties: radiography, radiation therapy, nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance and sonography. Where there is no regulator, employers require CAMRT (Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists) certification. You register in the discipline you trained in. Adding a second one means more school and another exam.
Things you don't need, but that help.
PET (positron emission tomography)
Advanced cancer imaging, often combined with CT (computed tomography). Few people trained, steady demand.
CT (computed tomography)
Most nuclear medicine cameras are now hybrid machines, so CT (computed tomography) skills are expected. A short post-diploma course.
Radiopharmacy
Preparing and quality-testing the tracers. Some technologists move into commercial radiopharmacies.
Theranostics
Using radioactive drugs to treat cancer, not just image it. A fast-growing area in big cancer centres.
Volunteer in a hospital
Calming a patient before an injection is half the skill.
Comfort with chemistry lab work
Pipettes, syringes and quality checks every morning.
Careful, methodical habits
Radiation safety rules are strict and every dose is logged.
Companies that make radiopharmaceuticals and hybrid scanners hire experienced technologists as applications specialists and sales support. It means travel, regular hours and usually higher pay than the hospital grid. Many technologists move into it after 5 to 10 years.
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Early start in the hot lab, drawing up the day's doses behind lead shielding and checking each one. Then patients: a bone scan for cancer spread, a heart stress test with a tracer, a thyroid scan, a lung scan for a suspected clot. You inject, wait for the tracer to travel, position the patient under a gamma camera and acquire images for 20 to 40 minutes each. Between scans you process images for the physician, run quality control on the camera and manage radioactive waste. Mostly weekdays, with some on-call.
The good
The hard parts
Things people don't tell you.
For decades the Chalk River reactor in Ontario produced a large share of the world's supply of molybdenum-99, the raw material for the most common nuclear medicine tracer. It shut down in 2018, and hospitals worldwide had to find new sources.
The most-used tracer, technetium-99m, has a half-life of about 6 hours. The dose you inject in the morning has mostly decayed by bedtime, which is exactly why it is safe enough to use.
In X-ray the machine emits radiation. In nuclear medicine the patient does, after the injection. The gamma camera just listens. That is why technologists keep their distance and work fast.
The CAMRT (Canadian Association of Medical Radiation Technologists) exam costs $980 and runs in January, May and September. Nuclear medicine, radiation therapy and MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) candidates all write on day two.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.