The only other obstacle to the wider use of PET-CT is the difficulty and cost of producing and transporting the radiopharmaceuticals used for PET imaging, which are usually extremely short-lived (for instance, the half life of radioactive Fluorine-18 (18F) used to trace glucose metabolism (using fluorodeoxyglucose, FDG) is two hours only.
Nuclear Radiologist: Average Salary: $180,000. Nuclear radiology is a radiology field that uses radioactive material in imaging, diagnosis and treatment. PET scans, CT scans and gamma imaging are the most commonly used equipment in this field.
A few individual surveys provide additional insights into radiologists' compensation. Medical staffing firm Merritt Hawkins reported an average salary of $402,000 for radiologists, but the individual salaries in its survey ranged from a low of $225,000 to a high of $450,000. Rival firm Jackson & Coker tracks the impact of benefits in its own survey.