“What would be the single most important aspect of radiology that would define our future in the next few decades?”… Asking a potent and powerful question facilitates deep thought, rigorous search, makes a great debate with purpose, and moves us into action.
Our culture would define our future.
We, the members of Radiology Research Alliance (RRA), have been focusing our energies for the last few years to find answers to some of the important and evolving trends in medicine and health care delivery that are pertinent to radiology research and practice. We anticipate these trends would define our culture and future. In this issue of Academic Radiology , there are five articles—“Methods and challenges in quantitative imaging biomarker development,” “Clinical utility of quantitative imaging,” “Online social networking for radiology,” “Entrepreneurship in the academic radiology environment,” and “Building for tomorrow today: opportunities and directions in radiology resident research” . These articles were conceptualized, debated, written with rigorous search of literature and including wider perspectives from many junior and senior radiologists, residents, and medical students—the annual RRA task forces.
Quantitative imaging would be valuable for selection of patient-specific therapies, avoid treatment-related morbidities and expenses due to ineffective therapies—facilitating “precision medicine.” However, the methodological challenges in development, validation, and implementation challenges in community radiology and medical practices are real and considerable. The rigorous technical standards required for quantitative imaging impose significant practical issues in day-to-day radiology practice. However, we, as a community, must overcome these challenges to make quantitative imaging part of routine clinical practice by standardizing our methods and interpretations. Acceptance and implementation in wider radiology practice is fundamental, if we are going to succeed. We need to develop the culture to facilitate this transition. This is of paramount importance to our future.
The online revolution is impacting every aspect of medical practice and health care delivery. It has brought patients, our customers, in the center of everything we deliver in health care. The rapid transition in communication and greater emphasis on cost of care and outcome have brought us to define our value to patients than staying behind the walls and focusing on volume. Patients now have access to their medical records and imaging reports and request that we explain how our images are worth the cost in their care and future life decisions. We have to transition ourselves in the front end of care and explain the value of imaging directly to our patients. We need to make our imaging more accessible to our clinicians and patients so that clinicians can explain to patients how imaging is a vital part of management decision making. How we would focus our energies to develop and implement the transition to the front end of clinical care would define our culture and future in the decades to come.
Radiology’s survival and thriving depend on how the younger generation adapts to the evolving environment of health care delivery and how our discoveries would facilitate the value to our patients. Nurturing our residents today for tomorrow’s challenges is essential. We need to plant the expectation how radiology would be practiced in the future and focus resident education and research efforts to fit this strategy. This is a long arc, but we need to methodically and systematically develop our residents and interested medical students to the future radiology practice. This will require development in education, research, and advocacy to protect our interests and deliver our value to patients. Again, this will define our culture and future.
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References
1. Abramson R.G., Burton K.R., Yu J.J., et. al.: Methods and challenges in quantitative imaging biomarker development. Acad Radiol 2015; 22: pp. 25-32.
2. Rosenkrantz A.B., Mendiratta-Lala M., Bartholmai B.J., et. al.: Clinical utility of quantitative imaging. Acad Radiol 2015; 22: pp. 33-49.
3. Auffermann W.F., Chetlen A.L., Colucci A.T., et. al.: Online social networking for radiology. Acad Radiol 2015; 22: pp. 3-13.
4. Itri J.N., Ballard D.H., Kantartzis S., et. al.: Entrepreneurship in the academic radiology environment. Acad Radiol 2015; 22: pp. 14-24.
5. Yu J.P., Kansagra A.P., Thaker A., et. al.: Building for tomorrow today: opportunities and directions in radiology resident research. Acad Radiol 2015; 22: pp. 50-57.