Meet Chaundria and Rachel

That’s Chaundria Singleton on the left, sitting with her life-size cut out, Rachel, who bears a striking resemblance to her. Chaundria is a first-time author of a children’s book, Rachel the Radiographer, which is Chaundria’s response to her 20-plus years of service in the medical field as a radiologic technologist. “What takes me every day,” Chaundria says, “is that I get to help people with their health, radiology specifically. I specialize in MRI and CT and I just enjoy being with my patients and the other side of my profession.” She is the third woman we will celebrate this month for Women In History.

The other side of Chaundria’s profession includes her management of her home-based company, C&C Imaging Services. Her company is an imaging and staffing business that “assists imaging centers and hospital staff with  technologists, which could encompass CT technologists, MRI technologists, radiologic technologists, those who do general x-ray, nuclear medicine, radiation therapists, and mammography technologists,”  

Chaundria says.

Ironically, radiologic technology is the 3rd largest profession in the nation, bringing in the most revenue for hospitals, second only to cardiology. Yet, the government labels radiologic technologists on the technical side, which means they are currently seen as having technical skills as opposed to professional skills, which inadvertently affects the pay and status in comparison to professionals. It’s a field that has been overlooked or never considered because it’s not mainstream dominant. The work is not forefront, but rather behind the scenes. Still, Chaundria assures that the pay and the flexibility and freedom it affords is worth the effort.

Chaundria admits that there have been times when she had both a 9-5 along with her business, but her entrepreneurial spirit began many years ago when she was just 13. "I wanted to go to Six Flags and my mother said that wasn’t in the budget. So she agreed to let me cut the lil ladies grass in the neighborhood. I got a few more clients from there, and by the time I got paid, I didn’t want to go to Six Flags anymore. I wanted to keep it!” Chaundria recalls that the experience helped her to appreciate early on that you don’t have to depend on someone else to live. “That really opened my eyes to something bigger,” she says.

Now, Chaundria’s aim is to open the eyes of little girls of color everywhere about discovering unknown possibilities, particularly in the field of science and to think outside of the ordinary. Rachel, the protagonist in Chaundria’s children’s book, doesn’t have a specific age or grade level mentioned.

As a mom, and as a woman who remembers my little girl self, I imagine Rachel is about 8 and in the 3rd grade. Little girls (and women too) reading Rachel the Radiographer, will imagine her at whatever age she needs to be to discover themselves and to attach their minds with courage and confidence to whatever hopes and dreams they had considered in the past, have for themselves in the moment, and the bold ideas they will turn into realities in the future to come. Let’s go ladies!

Chaundria may be reached for questions and comments at acoupleofradtechs@gmail.com