ARRT® Standards of Ethics

There’s a moment every student in radiography faces: when the material stops feeling like test content and starts feeling like a mirror. The ARRT® Standards of Ethics are that mirror. They reflect not just what you know, but who you are becoming — the kind of technologist who deserves the trust of patients, colleagues, and the profession itself.

The Standards of Ethics, published by the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists® (ARRT®), are far more than a list of professional rules. They are the moral framework of radiologic technology — a blend of law, conscience, and aspiration that defines what it means to be qualified to practice. As the preamble states, the Standards apply to all technologists and candidates who hold or seek ARRT® certification, setting a national benchmark for integrity in medical imaging and radiation therapy.^1

The Standards exist to ensure that every radiologic technologist embodies “a set of professional values that cause one to act in the best interests of patients.”^2 This isn’t simply about compliance — it’s about cultivating judgment, discretion, and moral reflexes that make great technologists great.

The Dual Nature of the Standards: Code and Rules

The ARRT® Standards of Ethics are divided into two sections — the Code of Ethics and the Rules of Ethics. Together, they shape both the aspirational and enforceable dimensions of professional behavior.

The Code of Ethics is aspirational. It calls you to higher ground — to act professionally, respect human dignity, protect confidentiality, and continually improve your skills. These eleven principles serve as a compass for conduct. They are not punishments but promises — ideals meant to inspire the heart of a profession rooted in compassion and science. As the ARRT® defines it, the Code “shall serve as a guide by which Registered Technologists and Candidates may evaluate their professional conduct.”^3

The Rules of Ethics, on the other hand, are enforceable. They represent the minimum legal and ethical standards of practice, and violations can result in disciplinary action, suspension, or even revocation of certification. The Rules govern concrete issues such as fraud, subversion of exams, unprofessional conduct, and the misuse of credentials.^4

This dual structure captures the essence of ethical maturity: the ability to rise toward ideals while honoring boundaries.

The Code of Ethics: Eleven Principles for the Modern Technologist

Each of the eleven Code principles expresses a distinct dimension of moral and professional excellence. They are not abstract philosophy — they are the daily disciplines that separate the competent from the exceptional.

1. Act professionally and support quality care.
   Every patient encounter is an opportunity to show calm, respect, and competence. Professionalism isn’t just attire or tone — it’s consistency under pressure.

2. Advance the profession’s purpose.
   The heart of radiography is service to humanity. Your work illuminates the unseen, aids diagnosis, and protects life.

3. Provide care without discrimination.
   The Code prohibits bias on any basis — race, gender, religion, identity, or illness. True professionalism means every patient receives the same level of excellence and empathy.

4. Use knowledge and equipment responsibly.
   Every technique, exposure, and adjustment should reflect sound theoretical understanding. Cutting corners endangers patients and undermines the profession’s credibility.

5. Exercise judgment and act in the patient’s best interest.
   You are not merely following orders; you are an advocate. When something seems wrong — an incorrect order, unnecessary exposure, or patient distress — your judgment is the final safeguard.

6. Recognize limits — do not diagnose.
   While technologists contribute critical data, interpretation lies beyond the scope of practice. Ethical radiographers never imply or state diagnostic conclusions.

7. Protect patients and colleagues from unnecessary radiation.
   Radiation safety is both science and moral duty. The ALARA principle — As Low As Reasonably Achievable — is an ethical as well as a technical standard.

8. Practice with honesty and integrity.
   Ethics is not only about what you do when people are watching; it’s about what you do when they are not. Fraud, data manipulation, or credential misrepresentation erode public trust.

9. Respect confidentiality and privacy.
   HIPAA is law, but confidentiality is virtue. Protecting patient information is not just compliance — it’s a form of respect.

10. Commit to lifelong learning.
    Excellence in this field demands continual education. Technology evolves; so must you.

11. Remain free from impairment.
    Substance use that affects performance is not only a legal violation but a breach of patient trust.

These principles, when internalized, turn a profession into a calling. They represent the moral anatomy of radiologic practice — discipline, humility, and devotion to human dignity.

The Rules of Ethics: Accountability in Action

If the Code of Ethics defines who you aspire to be, the Rules of Ethics define what you must never become. These rules serve as the enforceable core of professional integrity. They are the non-negotiables — the legal and moral boundaries that ensure technologists uphold the dignity, safety, and trust placed in them by patients and the public.

According to the ARRT® Standards of Ethics (2023), the Rules of Ethics are “mandatory standards of minimally acceptable professional conduct” and apply to all current and prospective technologists. They exist to protect both patients and the credibility of the profession itself.

Violating these rules is not a mere policy infraction; it is a failure of moral responsibility. Each infraction undermines public confidence in radiologic technology — a profession that depends entirely on trust.

Fraud and Deceptive Practices

Fraud sits at the top of the list for a reason. The ARRT® defines fraud as any deceit in obtaining, maintaining, or representing credentials, employment, or licensure. This includes falsifying academic records, altering ARRT® documents, or lying about certification status.

A single falsified document can unravel years of work. The ARRT® treats such actions as grounds for immediate disciplinary action — including suspension or revocation of credentials. This extends beyond the exam itself. Misrepresentation of experience, manipulating billing, or forging clinical records all qualify as ethical violations under fraudulent practice.

Integrity, therefore, is not optional. It’s the invisible contract you sign every time you wear your badge.

Subversion of the Examination or Continuing Qualifications Process

In the age of digital communication, ethical challenges have evolved. The ARRT® explicitly forbids “subverting or attempting to subvert” the exam or Continuing Qualifications Requirements (CQR) process.

Examples include sharing exam questions, reconstructing test materials from memory, impersonating another candidate, or purchasing unauthorized study content. Even posting exam-style questions online after sitting for an exam is a breach. These rules also apply to continuing qualifications, ensuring that credentialed technologists remain competent and honest in maintaining their certification.

Ethical technologists recognize that competence cannot be borrowed. It must be earned — through disciplined study, clinical excellence, and genuine mastery of the craft.

Unprofessional and Unethical Conduct

The Rules of Ethics extend well beyond exam conduct. They address the daily moral choices that define real-world professionalism.

A technologist can be found in violation for “any departure from minimal standards of acceptable and prevailing practice.” That includes behavior that creates unnecessary danger, even if no harm occurs.
Consider these examples:

• Performing an exam outside your scope of practice.

• Ignoring radiation safety measures.

• Mishandling patient information.

• Using language that disrespects a patient’s dignity.

Each act, however small, erodes the profession’s integrity. The ARRT® recognizes that actual injury need not be proven for a violation to exist; endangerment alone is enough.

Additionally, the Rules explicitly prohibit sexual misconduct — any conduct, verbal or physical, that could be interpreted as sexual or demeaning by the patient. Even suggestive jokes, casual comments, or inappropriate familiarity have no place in a clinical setting.

Finally, the ARRT® identifies unethical conduct as any behavior likely to “deceive, defraud, or harm the public.” This includes falsifying records, breaching confidentiality, or demonstrating reckless disregard for patient welfare. In radiography, ethics isn’t situational — it’s continuous.

Scope of Practice and Technical Competence

The ARRT® Rules also define professional boundaries through what they call Scope of Practice. Performing procedures without adequate training or outside your certification is considered technical incompetence. This is more than a professional misstep; it’s a legal risk.

For example, a technologist who attempts to interpret images, adjust physician orders without authorization, or perform invasive procedures without proper credentials violates the Standards. Every procedure must align with institutional policy, state law, and ARRT® certification parameters.

Competence, in this context, is both ethical and legal. A qualified technologist knows not only how to perform an exam, but when not to.

Reporting and Accountability

The ARRT® requires that all registered technologists self-report any ethics violation within 30 days of occurrence — including criminal charges, license suspensions, or disciplinary actions. Failure to self-report can itself constitute a violation.

Students preparing for the ARRT® exam should note this well: ethics begins before certification. Even candidates in training are held to the same standards. The ARRT® defines candidates as individuals who have submitted an application or pre-application, meaning that ethical review begins long before you step into the exam room.

Self-reporting may feel intimidating, but it’s rooted in transparency. The ARRT® encourages technologists to submit a written narrative explaining the event and attach supporting documentation through official channels — mail, fax, or email to the Ethics Requirements Department.

In this way, the organization upholds not just compliance, but redemption. The process recognizes that ethical maturity often grows through accountability.

Internalizing Ethics: From Policy to Practice

The ARRT® Standards of Ethics exist not to police you, but to shape you. They transform professionalism from a checklist into a way of being. Students often approach these standards as exam material — something to memorize and move on from — but that mindset misses their true value. The Standards are not just content for your ARRT® registry; they are content for your character.

The Statement of Purpose within the Standards explains that the goal is to “identify individuals who have internalized a set of professional values that cause one to act in the best interests of patients.”¹ That word — internalized — carries immense weight. It means that ethics should not live in a textbook but in your habits, your tone, your reflexes when no one is watching.

When ethical values are internalized, compliance becomes natural. Verification of patient identity, respect for confidentiality, avoidance of shortcuts in digital imaging — these become second nature. In the clinical environment, ethics is less about reacting to dilemmas and more about preventing them through awareness and empathy.

Ethical Reflection: The Heart of Professional Growth

The ARRT® Code of Ethics invites every technologist to be both scientist and philosopher — to constantly question, reflect, and refine one’s moral compass. True ethical reflection asks, “What would uphold the patient’s dignity in this moment?” rather than “What can I get away with?”

This reflective mindset protects you from ethical drift — the slow erosion of values under pressure, fatigue, or routine. For example, a rushed technologist might skip confirming a patient’s identity or disregard a minor breach in confidentiality, believing it harmless. But ethical erosion happens one compromise at a time. The Code of Ethics exists to bring you back to center: to remind you that professionalism is built, image by image, on trust.

For students preparing for the ARRT® registry, reflection means connecting what you study to who you want to become. Every test question about ethics is not merely theoretical; it represents a real decision you’ll make in the field — about consent, privacy, scope of practice, or radiation protection.

Ethics and the Registry Exam: Beyond Memorization

Students often view the Standards of Ethics as dense material to endure before the exam. But the ARRT® doesn’t include these standards to add difficulty; it includes them to ensure that every credentialed technologist embodies the moral discipline necessary to handle radiation, technology, and human vulnerability responsibly.

When you encounter ethics questions on your exam, they are not designed to test obscure legal knowledge. They are designed to test your judgment.

Consider examples:

• A coworker alters image brightness to hide a positioning error — what do you do?

• A patient asks what the “dark spot” on their film means — how do you respond ethically and legally?

• You overhear colleagues discussing patient information in a hallway — what’s your obligation?

Each of these scenarios requires not memorized recall but ethical reasoning — the ability to discern what best protects the patient and the profession’s integrity. By studying the ARRT® Standards of Ethics deeply, you prepare not just to answer correctly, but to act correctly in real life.

Ethics as a Living Commitment

After certification, ethics remains the foundation of your continuing qualification. The ARRT® mandates ongoing professional education and adherence to its Rules of Ethics throughout your career. This ensures that you remain accountable, competent, and current. Ethics, then, is not a phase of education — it is the lifelong covenant that binds technologists to the promise of safe, compassionate care.

As the Code of Ethics beautifully states, every technologist must “continually strive to improve knowledge and skills by participating in continuing education and professional activities, sharing knowledge with colleagues, and investigating new aspects of professional practice.” The ethical technologist understands that the pursuit of excellence never ends.

Ethics, like radiography itself, is a discipline of precision. You position yourself with integrity every day — in how you speak to patients, document procedures, handle mistakes, and uphold confidentiality. Every ethical act, no matter how small, sharpens your professional image and strengthens the public’s trust in your work.

The Ethical Technologist: A Closing Reflection

To become a radiologic technologist of the highest order, you must weave ethics into every fiber of your craft. Ethics is not an accessory to competence — it is competence. It’s what ensures that the power of imaging is never separated from the compassion of care.

When you stand in the control booth, remember that your choices echo through unseen corridors — into the safety of the patient, the integrity of the image, and the reputation of the profession. The ARRT® Standards of Ethics are your compass for those moments. They remind you that greatness in radiography is not achieved through technical perfection alone but through moral clarity.

To know the Standards is to memorize a set of rules;
To live them is to embody a calling.

Bibliography

• American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT®). Standards of Ethics. St. Paul, MN: ARRT, September 2023.

• American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT®). Code of Ethics. St. Paul, MN: ARRT, September 2023.

• American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT®). Rules and Regulations. St. Paul, MN: ARRT, 2023.

• American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT®). ARRT Code of Ethics Student Handout. 2023.

• American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT®). Bylaws. 2024.