In my daytime job as executive director of the International Society of Radiology, I get occasional questions about how many radiologists there are in specific countries and in the whole world. My simple answer is that I do not know. Then I add that no one else knows either.
One caller told me he had contacted the World Health Organization, which referred him to me. “Why don’t you know something as simple and important as how many members you should have,” he asked. So I told him that although the International Society of Radiology has 86 national society members, many of the societies don’t answer our questions, even to give us the names and addresses of current officers, much less the number of individual members. And, of those practicing medical imaging in any country, how many are members of the national society?
But beyond the matter of raw numbers, many of the same societies have never told us how qualified—if at all—their members are. Are they all trained as physicians? How are they trained in radiology? What about subspecialty training? Are there requirements for continuing medical education?
Had I wanted to sound erudite in my ignorance, I could have continued by commenting on the prevailing number of physicians with little or no training in radiology who perform imaging procedures in many parts of the world because there are no trained radiologists to be found in their communities or regions. If we wanted to look at the other side of this dilemma, I could explain about the turf wars in the most sophisticated countries.
Long before this depth of questioning about quality, most callers have rung off, leaving me to brood a few minutes and then get back to more mundane chores.
The prime mission of the International Society of Radiology, regional societies, and national organizations is to help educate their own members and to spread their efforts beyond their boundaries. That is not a mundane chore. Another dimension of our effort is to acquaint physicians in other disciplines about the virtues of medical imaging and the value of those who devote their careers to the diagnosis of every kind of disease except possibly skin rash and obesity.
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<
Get Radiology Tree app to read full this article<