Celebrating International Women’s Day – Katie Thompson

If anyone had said when I first ventured into my radiography career that I would end up as president of The Society and College of Radiographers (SCoR), I would not have believed it. At school, I was interested in science, and for a while a career in biochemical sciences was my goal. Due to a visit to the Science Museum in London with my physics group, my career path veered from laboratory to clinical and my journey into radiography began.

I started my journey at the Lincolnshire School of Radiography, when the qualification was a Diploma of The College of Radiographers (DCR) in diagnostic radiography. The principal of the school was the formidable Miss Ledger, who was the epitome of best practice. When I qualified, finding a job was not easy as there was a surplus of radiographers, difficult to believe given our current workforce issues. I needed to move away from my hometown and this led me south of the border, finding my first junior radiographer post. During my radiography training I had discovered a love for ultrasound, and I was able to pursue this early in my career. I still feel the same way about it.

My career has been influenced by a number of wonderful people, many of them women. One such was a radiologist called Dr Ann Jones, who gave me both support and encouragement to fulfil my potential as a newly qualified sonographer, and also my trainers Dale Coules and Shirley Legge.

I have always believed that knowledge is to be shared and improving patient care and services is something we can all try to influence. This led to me setting up a training session for the obstetrics and gynaecology rotational doctors in early pregnancy in order to improve the service for patients when attending the hospital out of hours. That evolved into a training programme for midwives performing presentation scans, significantly reducing the waiting times for people referred to the day assessment unit to confirm if their baby was breech or not. In 2019, I won Southwest Deanery Trainer of the Year for my early pregnancy training programme.

Alongside my teaching, I am also an industrial relations representative. I became involved in the SoR regional representatives committee, first as secretary and then as chair. It gave me a whole new area of learning and opportunities, from going to the annual delegates’ conference to being elected to the delegates’ conference committee, to then putting myself forward for a position on the SCoR UK Council as a board member in 2020, a time when Zoom and Teams came into their own. I had no idea of the effect that decision would have on my future.

Council was a steep learning curve in areas I previously had limited knowledge of, but the board and executive team were supportive, and training was freely available to fill in any gaps.

The opportunities I experienced helped me grow as a professional. The people around you do influence decisions you make, and if you are blessed to have people that allow you to push yourself, to apply for a position or take on a new responsibility, regardless of the outcome, it gives you the confidence to achieve great things. Failure and rejection are parts of our lives, and not always pleasant ones, but they can be used as a medium for growth and development. There is always much to learn from feedback, and this should not stop us from trying again.

I would never have put myself forward for the position of vice president if it had not been for those around me asking the right questions.

It has been one of the proudest moments of my life so far to be president of the SCoR. I have been able to focus on relaunching the ‘Hello, my name is…’ campaign to improve service users’ experiences and raising our profile among them.

So, if an opportunity comes your way, go for it. Whatever the outcome, there will be growth and learning, and you may find you achieve things you never thought you were capable of. As Pam Black, another amazing woman I have the honour to know, said to me at the beginning of my presidential journey: “Prepare to hand over to the next person and plan for what you want to do next.” I have heeded her words and my list is growing.

Read the full International Women’s Day feature on pages 6 and 7 of the February 2026 issue of RAD Magazine.

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