By Matt Skoufalos
For years, Shannon Boos parlayed her lifelong love of animals into work as a dog groomer. She loved her work, but began to wonder what other opportunities would be available to her if she were to advance her education, or try something different — like medical imaging.
Shannon enrolled in the X-ray tech program at Rowan College at Burlington County (RCBC), and began working as a tech aide at South Jersey Radiology (SJR), a multi-site, physician-led imaging practice.
“I thought, if I don’t like X-ray, I’m bound to like something – nuclear medicine, MRI, CT – so many options,” she said. “I decided because I was so indecisive. The key was I don’t have to settle; I’m sure I’ll find something I like.”
“I just loved X-ray so much more than I thought I would, and I didn’t explore any other modalities,” Shannon said. “It was way more rewarding than I ever expected it to be. It is not easy schooling.”
Shannon remained at SJR while she completed her clinical rounds at the Voorhees, Berlin, and Mount Holly, New Jersey locations of Virtua Hospital, respectively; and she kept working there part-time after graduating in May 2011. Full-time positions were scarce in her field at the time, but Shannon was able to land per-diem work at Virtua Berlin, and continued to work as a pet groomer on the side.
Being within the Virtua Health system afforded Shannon the opportunity to join that network full-time when it opened an outpatient urgent care center in Moorestown, New Jersey in 2012. Today, she works as the lead X-ray tech at that urgent care, and as a clinical preceptor within the RCBC X-ray program, traveling to affiliated hospital sites to help new techs learn the ropes of patient care.
“I was hitting my point of ‘what else can I possibly do here?’, and so I went back to school and got my bachelor’s online,” Shannon said. “One of my old coworkers was teaching at RCBC, and said they would be looking for people. That gave me the kick to finish quicker than I’d intended to; it gave me my foot in the door to see if I like teaching.”
“Now, I find myself at some of those same hospitals with the same techs while I’m teaching,” she said.
Among the aspects of the job that Shannon most enjoys is her ability to support patients’ needs and capture a high-quality diagnostic image, whether she has to move the room, the tube or reposition patients to do it. She also enjoys interacting with the patients entrusted to her care, getting to know them 15 minutes at a time.
“I want to hear why a patient is getting an X-ray,” she said; “I want to know how they did with their surgery because I saw them pre-op.”
That same interest in people has carried over to Shannons’ interactions with her students. She loves to hear how they, like she, found professional purpose in the imaging field; what their interests and hobbies are; and how their approach to the industry might differ from her own.
“I really enjoy being with the students, getting to know them as people – not just sitting there listening to me talk for two hours,” Shannon said. “There’s no other tech with me when I’m working, so it’s nice to get out there and see other techs and make those connections.”
Unlike the career landscape she faced upon graduating in 2011, the X-ray techs who complete the RCBC program today have little difficulty finding employment. Shannon views that as a natural offshoot of the post-COVID-19 pandemic career landscape that has delivered new career opportunities as well as a mindset geared towards problem-solving.
“COVID really made a lot of people leave, but it also made us creative,” she said. “We had to find other ways to do things. That happened in the X-ray world too. How can we do this without being hands-on?”
“[There’s more] teamwork; I see that people maybe work together better since COVID,” Shannon said. “They’ve found the X-ray role is maybe more important than they once gave us credit for, and students are filling in those holes that they thought they didn’t need.”
When she’s not at work, Shannon is focused on her family, which includes her adult daughter, Phoebe, school-aged son, Dylan, and dogs Fry and Tucker. Fry, a golden retriever, is 12, and was one of the ring-bearers when Shannon married her husband, Garrett. Tucker, 5, is a Labrador retriever mix and rescue dog who is “very attached to his brother,” Fry, she said.
“My dogs are still my children,” Shannon said. “Those are our boys. We’re always looking for another golden to add to our family. They’re perpetual toddlers to me; they’re happy with anything. They make you feel like a better person.”
The family’s love of dogs extends into the natural world, where Shannon takes any chance she can to go on a hike. She’s happy to walk the neighborhood with a podcast in her earbuds, but special trips, like a recent visit to Acadia National Park in Maine, remain fixed in her memory.
On evenings when she has not worked a 12-hour day, Shannon also likes spending time with a good book. She enjoys psychological thrillers, but won’t turn down a meet cute romance novel depending upon her mood.
As significant a role in her life as pets and family play, Shannon also counts herself a tremendous Philadelphia sports fan, a passion that runs throughout her extended family. Shannon shares a partial Philadelphia Phillies season ticket plan with her niece, Sarah, and the family has elevated the stakes for each contest by keeping track of who’s in attendance when the team wins.
“We have taken it to the next level,” Boos said. “My brother-in-law made trophies. We now have a winner and a loser trophy. You have to go to at least five games a season for it to count; I’ve been second or third place every year.”
Her favorite players on the team include catcher J.T. Realmuto, designated hitter Kyle Schwarber, who is the National League home run champion; and utility player Edmundo Sosa, whose jersey she purchased this year.
“I’m a huge sports fan,” Shannon said. “If I’m not at the game, I’m watching the game. That’s a passion my dad inflicted on us.”
That passion extends to her love of the Philadelphia Eagles. In her household, “the Super Bowl is like our Christmas,” regardless of the matchup. As much as the family “bleeds green” for its beloved team, they gather in droves to watch the final contest of the season.
“We eat and enjoy each other,” Shannon said. “It’s a big to-do.”
The family tradition dates back some 20 years, when her uncles, one of whom was a chef, began cooking together for the game. They then started folding in their nieces and nephews to the party, and it expanded into an annual tradition.
“It went from four or five us to, if everybody comes, closer to 20,” Shannon said. “Unfortunately, my uncles have passed, but it’s nice that we can keep it going. He went all-out, so for us, it’s our family time.”
“It’s one of my favorite days of the year.”
Shannon’s love of sports has only strengthened since her father Don’s passing. Both he and her sister, Nicole, died of Huntington’s disease, and Shannon routinely helps fundraise towards a cure. In their memories, she runs a candygram campaign, through which her coworkers can send each other notes of appreciation with a little treat attached. All proceeds go to the nonprofit Huntington’s Disease Society of America, which improves the lives of families battling the genetic disease.
