New Digital Radiography system added to RadTech lab
April 9, 2025
SARANAC LAKE – Students in North Country Community College’s Radiologic Technology
program will benefit from a significant technology upgrade.
The program’s Radiology Lab, located on the Saranac Lake campus, was updated recently with the college’s first-ever digital radiography (DR) system. This system instantly converts X-rays into a digital image, displaying anatomy on an adjacent computer screen, unlike traditional film-based radiography.
This upgrade means students will be getting real-world training, as the college’s 13 associated clinical sites – hospitals and other health care facilities across the region – use DR systems in their radiology departments.
“This investment will allow our students to enter their clinical experience with a more in-depth understanding of the modern, high-tech process of capturing a radiographic image,” said Becky LaDue, director of the college’s Radiologic Technology program. “Our students couldn’t be more excited about taking radiographic images of the phantoms within our lab utilizing this new, hands-on DR system.”
The addition of this new system to the Radiology lab, alongside the computed radiography (CR) system donated by Samaritan Medical Center in Watertown in 2018, will allow for deeper understanding and more insight into the imaging process as students progress from the lab into their clinical rotations, LaDue said.
She credited college President Joe Keegan and Vice President of Academic Affairs Sarah Maroun for their work in acquiring the DR system, which cost $40,000. The upgrade was funded using a Perkins grant, a federal program designed to improve career and technical education at high schools and colleges.
North Country’s Associate of Applied Science in Radiologic Technology is a two-year degree program that is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education and adheres to the American Society of Radiologic Technologists curriculum.
For more information, visit www.nccc.edu/radtech.