Published September 17, 2026 · dates verified with the ASRT
The November observance for radiologic technologists, explained without the guesswork: when it falls, why the anchor date is a Friday evening in 1895, and which of the two similarly named organizations actually runs it.
National Radiologic Technology Week 2026 runs November 8-14, 2026, Sunday through Saturday. Those are the dates published by the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, the organization that sponsors the week, and they are the dates imaging departments, radiography programs, and the ASRT's own materials work from.
The ASRT holds the week during the week of November 8 to mark the anniversary of Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen's discovery of the x-ray on November 8, 1895. That anchor date never moves. The week around it does, because the ASRT observes it Sunday through Saturday, so the exact dates depend on which weekday November 8 lands on.
November 8, 2026 is a Sunday, which makes 2026 a tidy year: the week starts on the anniversary itself and runs through Saturday, November 14. Compare 2024, when November 8 fell on a Friday and the ASRT's dates were November 3-9. Same rule, very different-looking dates. That is exactly why copying last year's dates forward is the most common mistake made about this observance.
A calendar site that disagrees with the ASRT is wrong. That is the whole rule.
All the same week. The observance goes by more names than most, and that is part of why searching for it is a chore:
The official name, and a registered trademark of the ASRT. It is the wording on the association's posters and press releases, and the proclamation language hospitals borrow.
The ASRT's own abbreviation, and the root of the hashtag it uses each year. A coworker who says "en-are-tee-double-you" is not clearing their throat.
What nearly everyone says out loud and types into a search bar. Nobody in an imaging department has ever said all five official words in a row.
Informal variants for the same November week. Both are fine; the first undersells it, since the week covers CT, MRI, mammography, nuclear medicine, and radiation therapy as well as x-ray.
Common on hospital marquees, and technically off: the week honors technologists, not radiologists. The techs will happily explain the difference. Repeatedly.
A separate, international observance on November 8, run by the ISRRT and marking the same 1895 discovery. NRTW is the US week; World Radiography Day is the global day that always falls inside it.
The week is younger than the profession's association by nearly sixty years. The ASRT dates to October 1920, when Ed C. Jerman and thirteen technician colleagues, half of them women, met in Chicago to form the first national society for the people making the images. It was called the American Association of Radiological Technicians, and its stated purpose was to give technicians a way to trade ideas about radiologic technique.
The name took a while to settle. The society launched its journal, The X-Ray Technician, in 1929. By 1932 it had become the American Society of X-Ray Technicians, with nearly 400 members. In 1964 it adopted the name it holds today, the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, and it now reports more than 156,000 members from its business office in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
One clarification worth making early, because it trips up patients, HR departments, and the occasional hospital newsletter: the ASRT is not the ARRT. The American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, founded in 1922 and based in St. Paul, Minnesota, is the credentialing body that certifies and registers technologists. It is where the R.T.(R) on the badge comes from. The ASRT is the professional society. One organization tests you; the other advocates for you and sponsors the week.
National Radiologic Technology Week arrived in 1979, and the ASRT has held it during the week of November 8 every year since. The purpose has not changed in nearly fifty years: call attention to the role medical imaging and radiation therapy professionals play in patient care and safety, and get the public to notice the person on the other side of the lead-lined door.
The ASRT sets a theme each year. For 2026 it is "Radiating Love," which the association says honors the compassion, dedication and commitment medical imaging and radiation therapy professionals bring to patient care and safety every day.
Two of them trip up technologists too
2026 happens to start on the anniversary because November 8 is a Sunday. In 2024 the week was November 3-9. The rule is the week that includes November 8, not those particular dates.
The ASRT, founded in 1920, is the professional society that runs the week. The ARRT, founded in 1922, is the registry that certifies technologists and issues the credentials. Two acronyms one letter apart, swapped constantly.
Radiologists are physicians who read the images. Radiologic technologists produce them. The week is named for the second group, whatever the marquee out front says.
The ASRT's phrasing is medical imaging and radiation therapy professionals. That takes in CT, MRI, mammography, fluoroscopy, nuclear medicine, and radiation therapy, not only the plain film that started it all.
The ASRT has put registered radiologic technologists in the US at more than 450,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics counts 278,100 radiologic and MRI technologist jobs as of 2025. Both are right; one counts credentials and the other counts job titles.
Roentgen noticed the rays while studying cathode-ray tubes in his laboratory in Würzburg on the evening of November 8, 1895. In 1901 that work earned him the very first Nobel Prize in Physics.
The job title undersells it. "Takes the x-rays" is about as complete as calling a chef "the person who turns on the stove." A radiologic technologist positions the patient, selects the technique, checks the image, and sends it to the radiologist, and does all of that while managing radiation dose for everyone in the room. Positioning is the craft: a diagnostic lateral on a patient who treats "hold still" as a suggestion is a skill, not luck.
The credential behind the role is typically R.T.(R), earned through the ARRT after an accredited program and a board exam, and kept current with continuing education. Specializations add their own letters for CT, MRI, mammography, and radiation therapy, and every one of them comes with its own equipment, its own protocols, and its own version of "the patient moved."
Then there is the part no job description captures: explaining, for the fourth time before lunch, that the lead apron is not optional; the portable study at 3 AM that was billed as "just one quick chest"; the calm voice that gets a claustrophobic patient through an MRI. The week exists, in the ASRT's words, to call attention to that role in patient care and safety. It is also a reasonable moment to say thank you out loud.
Looking for something to actually hand a technologist that week? Our Rad Tech Week gift guide handles the shopping side, starting with our own The Unspoken Guide To Imaging, written for the people who say "hold still" for a living.
The Rad Tech Week questions people actually search for
National Radiologic Technology Week 2026 runs November 8-14, 2026, Sunday through Saturday, according to the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, the association that sponsors the week. The dates are set so the week includes November 8, the anniversary of Roentgen's discovery of the x-ray in 1895.
Because Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen discovered the x-ray on November 8, 1895. The ASRT holds National Radiologic Technology Week during the week that includes that date, so the observance always lands in the first half of November.
The week is anchored to November 8 rather than to fixed dates, and the ASRT observes it Sunday through Saturday, so the dates shift with the weekday November 8 falls on. In 2024 the week was November 3-9. In 2026 November 8 is a Sunday, so the week runs November 8-14.
The ASRT's official NRTW 2026 theme is "Radiating Love." The association says it honors the compassion, dedication and commitment medical imaging and radiation therapy professionals bring to patient care and safety every day.
All three refer to the same week. National Radiologic Technology Week is the official name and a registered trademark of the ASRT, NRTW is the association's abbreviation, and Rad Tech Week is what everyone actually says. X-ray Tech Week and Radiologic Technology Week turn up too. Radiology Week is the one to avoid, since the week honors technologists rather than radiologists.
The American Society of Radiologic Technologists has celebrated National Radiologic Technology Week since 1979. The ASRT itself is much older: it was founded in Chicago in October 1920 as the American Association of Radiological Technicians and took its current name in 1964.
The ASRT, the American Society of Radiologic Technologists, is the professional membership society that sponsors Rad Tech Week. The ARRT, the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists, founded in 1922, is the credentialing organization that certifies and registers technologists and issues credentials such as R.T.(R). Most technologists deal with both, but only one of them runs the week.