Future Interventional Radiologists and Where to find them: Commentary
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COMMENTARY
COMMENTARY
Future Interventional Radiologists and Where to find them: Commentary Elias N. Brountzos1
Received: 23 October 2020 / Accepted: 31 October 2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature and the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) 2020
Interventional radiology [IR] has emerged as a fundamental component of the modern health care treating patients with a vast variety of maladies both in elective and emergency basis, in such a way that it is hard to imagine a hospital without 24/7 IR services. However, there is a shortage of IRs. A report published in the UK identified a compelling need for qualified interventional radiologists as 45% of health services did not have access to IR [1]. To the best of my knowledge this is a global problem. Therefore, the impending question is how to attract the appropriate candidate physicians into IR? There are several challenges to address, foremost of which is the core of IR practice itself, which is a combination of radiology and surgery; this differs significantly from the diagnostic radiology exercise. The modern interventional radiologist acquires complex technical skills, works in a setting similar to surgery, and is available 24/7. The IR has to consult patients in clinics and provide longitudinal patient care. The mindset of the IR inevitably cannot be similar to the diagnostic radiology [DR] colleague. An additional factor that might deter junior doctors from choosing IR as a carrier is the limited awareness of IR among the physicians and the public, which might deprive the discipline of its prestigious profile [2]. Another negative attribute of paramount importance is the poor inclusion of IR education in the medical school
& Elias N. Brountzos [email protected] 1
‘‘Attikon’’ University General Hospital, 2nd Department of Radiology, Interventional Radiology Unit, University of Athens, Athens, Greece
curricula. For example, in the UK there is currently no defined undergraduate IR curriculum, whilst the European Society of Radiology (ESR) found that an average of just 5.3 h is dedicated to radiology at the undergraduate level [3]. To address this void in undergraduate IR education, the Cardiovascular and Interventional Radiological Society of Europe (CIRSE) has published in 2012 the first undergraduate IR curriculum to guide the integration of IR into undergraduate teaching; the curriculum has been revisited in 2018 [4]; however, there remains scarcity of data around its implementation. In their current article, Xu Y. et al. explore additional contributing factors that may encourage medical students and junior doctors to join the IR community using questionnaires addressed to a selected cohort with higher than usual interest in IR. Their results showed early involvement in IR clinical activities such as participating in procedures, in multidisciplinary meetings, and clinics as the most important contributors for choosing an IR carrier; additional contributors were IR electives, portfolio b
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