Recognition Factor for Interventional Radiologists

One of the biggest growth areas in the United States over the last 10 years has been the radio talk show. I am not sure about Europe, but I suspect a similar trend is occurring there as well. There are talk shows on topics such as politics, cars, plants, travel, cooking, and of course-something dear to my heart-sports. The stations are inundated with these "niche" type shows, and you can pretty much find a talk show on any topic that you want. If your financial situation is a problem, if your love life is a problem, you can find the show to listen to and even call up. I was wondering, do you think a show on radiology would sell?

Certainly, we need the publicity. No one really knows what a radiologist is or does, let alone an interventionist. I remember trying 40 years ago to explain to someone what my father did as a radiologist. "He doesn't take the pictures, he interprets them," I said. Other than that, I didn't really know. At least you can say that things remain consistent. At the CIRSE meeting in Lucerne this year, Fred Keller discussed the problem that we have as interventionalists in terms of name recognition and understanding of what we do. He presented videotape and a chart that demonstrated this problem. Fred pointed out that while pediatricians have a 90% recognition factor, and vascular surgeons have a 50% recognition factor, interventional radiologists have only a 2% recognition factor. Fred thinks that a name change is in order.

I wonder if a radio talk show that highlighted radiology and interventional radiology would help. Some might wonder if it really matters if only a small percentage of the population really knows who we are. I am not sure if every Tom, Dick, and Harry on the street needs to know what we can do as interventionalists. Yes, it is nice for our ego to see our names up in lights, but does that really help our specialty? Would it be fun to have a radio personality analyzing every thing we do? Imagine a heavy discussion on the radio about what guide wire we used for a particular case. Obviously, we wouldn't get a lot of listeners.

But, I think there are other ways to increase our visibility. It requires a lot of work and effort, and it requires that each individual works locally to make a name for the specialty. I, for one, am a big believer in working from the "ground up" to increase our "recognition factor". And, I also believe we never will get the visibility of a surgeon or a pediatrician. I mean, they just are not about to do a radio or television show on radiology.

However, there are other means of increasing the recognition factor. Let us look at sports for an answer. Did you know that there is basically one person who specializes in helping NFL kickers who kick field goals and extra points? He is wheelchair bound, has never been a kicker, but over the years has built a reputation of helping this important position player do better. This might be the equivalent in Europe of a person who assists in helping players with corner kicks in soccer. Now, the lay public won't ever know who this person is, but the kickers, the special teams coaches, the head coaches, the general managers, and the writers of football will all recognize these "specialized" individuals and understand their importance. The public will always know the quarterbacks name, they may even know a few other names, but they are not going to recognize the "special coach" of the kicker, even though it may be the teaching and input of this "special coach" that led to a successful season and-in the case of the New England Patriots kicker, Adam Venintari-a Super Bowl victory.

Obviously, there are imperfections with this system. The name recognition factor is just not going to get better. But, I believe the name recognition by the general public is not as important as the name recognition by medical specialists. Think of the other kickers and the kicking coaches as the equivalent of general practitioners and local physicians. They are the ones who need to know what we can do as interventionalists. The kicking coach's name is not going to be known to the general public. There are just not enough "kickers" out there. If there were hundreds of kickers, then this specialized coach would be known by everyone. Let's face it, there are millions of people with all kinds of cardiac and vascular problems, therefore a lot of people know what cardiologists and vascular specialists do.

So what do we do? I believe, as I always have, that interventional radiology requires a lot of low level, painstaking work by the radiologists to be successful. You can call me by any name you want, just know that we will do the intervention on the patient; we will see the abnormality; we will see and take care of the patient's problem; we will make rounds to check on the patient. We will solve the problem and make someone's life easier.

The power in intervention is from the bottom up.