HOUSE CALL: Getting to know your radiologist

SAN ANGELO, Texas - people healthy

You most likely recognize your primary care provider or specialty doctors when you see them outside their offices. But during a hospital stay, several other doctors often play a vital role in making sure you leave the hospital healthy. Do you know who they are and what they do?

The previous two House Call columns have introduced you to two of these “behind the scenes doctors,” an anesthesiologist and a pathologist. This time, we take a look at radiology.

A radiologist is a medical doctor who specializes in using medical imaging technology, such as MRI, CT, X-ray, ultrasound, and fluoroscopy, to help diagnose and treat disease and injury.

We primarily work behind the scenes, but we have an important role in patient care, working as a team with other physicians to help diagnose illness and make management decisions, based on the imaging studies we perform.

I am an interventional radiologist, which means I specialize in using imaging technology to perform minimally invasive treatments.

For example, we can use image guidance to biopsy a lesion that otherwise might require the patient to have open surgery. This technique shortens the amount of time the patient spends in the hospital, increases efficiency and decreases the risk of complications.

We start the morning off by reading any studies that came in overnight, such as those that happen in the ER.

Throughout the day we interact with physicians from all specialties, discussing the findings and recommendations from each case.

This is balanced with any procedures that are done, to ensure that we get our reports back to the physicians, and ultimately the patients, in a timely manner. We also interact with our technicians to ensure the patients are getting the appropriate studies and to optimize those studies to obtain the highest quality images.

We read digital images using a computerized system that can be accessed from multiple locations at all times. This differs from the picture many people have of a radiologist holding X-rays up to a light all day.

The system is quick for us to use, but it also is beneficial to patients as well. For example, we can look up all the studies a patient has had and know if they have a pre-existing illness.

It is a challenge every day to keep up with current technology and improvements in imaging systems, and we are constantly working and evolving to make new techniques and procedures available to our patients.

I particularly enjoy the patient interaction that is provided when performing interventional radiology, and at the Women’s Imaging Center with mammography.

It is gratifying to me that a patient understands their diagnosis and the role radiology has in their care.

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