After all these years, staffing levels remain a hot topic
In 1975 radiology practice was very different to modern day radiology. Some of the advances in the last 50 years have included the introduction of CT scanners (invented in 1971 by Godfrey Hounsfield), MRI, ultrasound, PET scanning and interventional and digital imaging into routine clinical practice.
When I started medical school, ultrasound and CT equipment was primitive, there was little interventional work, no MRI or PET scanners and films were developed in darkrooms. The digital era had not yet been born. There was no internet.
I first met founder of RAD Magazine David Roberts in Brighton in 1991 at the summer annual scientific meeting of The British Institute of Radiology, a precursor to the UKIO meeting of today. Presentations were then done on slides made with the help of the hospital medical illustration
departments, and transported in carousels. There was no PowerPoint or USB sticks and laptops like today. The scientific meetings were smaller and the RAD Magazine team invited me to join them for a drop-in buffet lunch. As I was a junior registrar in radiology at the time and attending the conference to present one of my first papers titled Contrast reactions in AIDS patients based on research done at the old Westminster Hospital, London, I did not think I was important enough to be given an invitation. David, a true gentleman and brilliant networker, said: “You young registrars are the future of the profession,” words I remember to this day, although back then I mingled uncomfortably with very serious looking senior consultants and superintendents.
The next time I saw him was at the 1993 BIR meeting in Glasgow. My first book Radiology of AIDS was being launched and I think David, who travelled around the conference with his camera, came to take a picture. RAD Magazine traditionally carried a picture report of this meeting annually over the years, in addition to reports from the annual RSNA, ECR and BMUS meetings. Over the years we met regularly at conferences, including the annual radiology meetings in Birmingham in the late 1990s when David would invite people for lunch in the RAD Magazine sponsored canal boat moored outside the International Convention Centre in Birmingham.
Invitations to write review articles for the magazine would arrive from time to time and the issues were themed around specific areas of radiology, proving to be a popular topic. It is interesting to reflect how the themed topics have changed over the years from CT, ultrasound, MRI, interventional, nuclear medicine, etc, in the early days to more recent themes like radiographic reporting, service delivery, radiology standards, molecular imaging and AI, which today fill its pages.
One thing that has remained unchanged over all these years is discussion about workload issues and increasing demand; over the years there never seemed to be enough staff to deliver the increasing demand in radiology departments. Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.
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