: Work with medical teams to administer non-invasive cardiac tests, including electrocardiographs , exercise stress tests and ambulatory monitoring.
“An electrocardiogram basically looks at the electrical activity of the heart,” explains Cindy Mazerolle, head of the cardiology program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. “Stickers are put on the chest, and the technologist hooks up the patient to a machine to measure the electrical activity of the heart.”Ms. Mazerolle adds that this form of testing is used to determine whether the patient has arrhythmia, or an abnormality in their heart rate.
Cardiology technologists are primarily employed by hospitals but can also be found in private clinics, medical labs, cardiac-rehab facilities, equipment companies and elsewhere in the medical community. Ms. Mazerolle says those who work in hospitals are often part of a larger cardiac team, typically working in eight-hour shifts and spending much of that time on their feet.
Practitioners also spend much of their time communicating directly with patients, administering tests and discussing results with medical staff.: The average salary of a cardiology technologist working in a hospital setting is between $27 and $29 an hour, Ms. Mazerolle says. “That would be the average, based on health authorities across Canada that cardiology technologists work in,” she said.