Researchisoneoftheprimaryhallmarksofaprofession.Medicalradiationtechnologists(MRTs)arepartofa‘‘neophyteacademicprofession’’ [1] that has seen a relatively slow uptake of researchandscholarlyenquiry[2].Withtheshifttobaccalaureateeduca-tion (and beyond) and the gradual increase in MRTs obtainingacademic appointments, more practitioners are becomingresearch-active.Our knowledgebaseisstill heavilyreliant, how-ever,onworkdonebyotherprofessionssuchasmedicine,phys-ics,andnursing[2].Thereareimportantprofession-specificgapsthat need to be filled to inform practice, policy, and educationwhich should be addressed by MRTs to establish a unique anddistinct paradigm for our professional research.When we do conduct research, we tend to focus on quanti-tativeresearch that ‘‘reduce(s)experience towell-defined varia-bles.for investigation’’ [3] or work that uses experimentaldesigns, involves statistical analysis and deals with numbers asdata. Our publications reflect this, for example only about5%ofsubmissionstotheJournalofMedicalImagingandRadi-ation Sciences (JMIRS) in the last 8 years have been nonquanti-tative (qualitative)papers. Qualitativeresearch is not driven bynumbers; it involves examining the reality of individuals, theirperceptions, and understanding of events or phenomena pri-marily using interviews, focus groups, and observation.Therearelikelyafewreasonsforthelackofqualitativeworkin our profession, probably the most significant being that thescientific (quantitative) approach is the dominant paradigmand gold-standard in medical research, and as such holds themost value in imaging and radiation therapy departments.Our practice has been convincingly described as being placedfirmly within ‘‘a biomedical model of health in a market-orientedservice,drivenbyquantitativeoutcomes’’[4].Further-more,itiseasier(relativelyspeaking)tobepartoftheteaminaphysician-drivenclinicaltrialorassistinamedicalphysicspro-jectthantobeinvolvedinaqualitativeinitiativethatoftenfallsinto the domain of social work, nursing, or psychology.As a further potential barrier, for a novice researcher, theapproaches and methodologies of qualitative research can bea whole new language. Many MRTs have done statisticscourses and may vaguely remember the difference betweencausation and correlation. How many of us are comfortablewith the concepts and lexicon of qualitative research such asthe differences between Husserlian and Heideggerian phe-nomenology? I am obviously exaggerating to make a point,but the roots of qualitative research lie in the traditions ofthe social sciences. Those of us in the applied health sciences,without a background in anthropology, sociology, or psycho-logy have struggled to learn the rules and jargon of anapproach that sometimes seems to be situated ‘‘inaccessiblyhigh up in the misty mountains of academic discourse’’ [5].It has not helped in the uptake of qualitative research that,until fairly recently, it has often been measured against quan-titative research and been found wanting. The two approacheswere traditionally posited as being diametrically opposed. Inhealth care, the subjectivity and descriptive nature of thedata often sat uneasily with more quantitative researchers[6]. In the 1970s and 1980s, we had quantitative researchersin one corner, discussing predetermined hypotheses andgeneralizability, occasionally taking pot shots at qualitative re-searchers’ ‘‘touchy-feely’’ methods. In the other corner, thequalitative researchers were defensively asserting that a so-called scientific approach is inherently flawed when dealingwith subjective human beings [7] and waiting for theoriesand ideas to mysteriously ‘‘emerge’’ from their post-positivistic data. At the end of the 1980s, the two forms finallycame to a sometimes shaky rapprochement, and at the begin-ning of the 1990s, the mixed methods movement was born.Mixed methods, using and blending the best elements ofboth approaches, has become far more common and is appro-priate for many of our practice-driven questions.Alongwiththeemergingacceptanceoftherolesandvalueofboth types of research, there has been a growing understandingthatthereisadisparitybetweentheaimsofthetraditionalqual-itative approaches grounded in the social sciences (primarilyethnography, grounded theory, and phenomenology) and thegoals of clinical health care researchers such as MRTs that may