Daniel T'seleie
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Aug 24/05) - After working in the Rankin Inlet Health Centre for over 30 years, Marie Tiktak is very familiar with the system. But as a clerk/interpreter she was never solely responsible for dealing with patients.

Now she can help elders and other community members who need X-rays taken. She graduated this month from an X-ray technician course with 11 others.

"At first it was hard, but as you get along it was easier," Tiktak said.

Memorizing medical terminology is required to pass the course.

Remembering terms in English can be difficult, and so is translating them into Inuktitut for unilingual patients. Tiktak refers to bones and other parts of the caribou when thinking about anatomy.

"It's almost like when you're looking at a caribou, that's how I remember parts in Inuktitut," she said.

The extra staff will help an already strained health care system.

"Nowadays, it's better to have people working all the time because there's lots of people who need X-rays," Tiktak said.

Numbers vary, but she estimates 15 to 20 people come in each week for X-rays. She is the only permanent radiographer in Rankin Inlet.

"They'll certainly make a difference to the effect that they're out in the community," said Carol Ann MacNeil, a medical radiation technologist and ultrasonographer at Baffin Regional Hospital.

There is a fine distinction between the training she has received and that offered to the basic radiography workers.

They are qualified to take X-rays of the limbs and the chest or abdomen. More complicated X-rays - of the back or skull for example - must be taken in Iqaluit.

The graduates will still be "very busy" MacNeil said. She estimates 75 to 80 per cent of X-rays can be taken in the community by the radiography workers.

"There are a lot of patients that need X-rays," she said.