Clinical Competency

Clinical competency is an important step to obtaining an Imaging Assistant credential through ARRT. To successfully complete your clinical competency requirements, you must perform and document a specific number of clinical activities (the specific activities required depend on your discipline). 

  • You’ll need to complete the activities before you apply for for the exam.
  • There are limits to the number of clinical competency entries you can report for each day (see below).
  • You must perform them no more than 24 months before you submit your application. 
    • Until you apply for the exam, any logged activities that exceed the 24-month timeframe will automatically expire. 
    • Once you apply for the exam and are assigned an exam window, your clinical competency activities are locked in and will not expire.

As you progress, you'll use our online Imaging Assistant tool to document the activities you’ve done and request that verifiers confirm your work. 

Clinical Competency Requirements

If you’re just beginning to pursue an Imaging Assistant credential, use the current Clinical Competency Requirements documents listed below. 

  • Imaging Assistant, Magnetic Resonance


    If we list two sets of requirements:

    • Check the effective date on the newer ones. You can’t start logging clinical competency activities under the old requirements if the effective date on the newer ones has passed. 
    • If you started logging activities before the newer requirements went into effect, however, you can continue—without losing any activities—until the older requirements expire. (That’s 24 months after the effective date of the newest requirements.)
    • If you’re logging activities on the older requirements, and you wish to switch to the new ones, you’ll have to delete the old worksheet and select the discipline again to start the new worksheet. (If you go this route, your activities won’t transfer automatically. However, you can make a copy of your completed competencies and manually transfer them over to the new worksheet.)

    Daily Reporting Limits For Clinical Competency Entries

    Because studies show that people learn more effectively when they experience short training sessions distributed over a longer period of time, we limit the number of clinical competency entries you can report each day.

    The limits depend on the discipline:

    • Imaging Assistant, Magnetic Resonance: maximum 10 entries per day

    Clinical competency entries include both the different activities you perform and the number of repetitions you perform of each activities. Remember: we limit only the number of entries you can report per day, not the number you can perform.