Reporting on X-ray Films by Radiographers will Always Remain Task-Specific and Limited In Scope: A Critical Discourse

Aloysius Gonzaga Mubuuke*

Reporting on X-ray Films by Radiographers will Always Remain Task-Specific and Limited In Scope: A Critical Discourse.

The number of radiologists is still very low especially in developing countries. It becomes even worse in the rural areas where there are no radiologists at all. Radiographers are the first people to contact patients who need X-ray services and clinicians often first contact radiographers to offer an opinion.

Many patients have died simply because the radiographer has not alerted the clinician
of an emergency due to limited training. Therefore, training radiographers to interpret on some selected X-ray images has become a necessity. However, owing to their limited medical knowledge, there is still debate that radiographer reporting will always remain limited and only task-specific.

I n this discourse, the term `radiographer` has been used to refer to those technologists that traditionally are supposed to operate the X-ray machine and produce X-ray images for the radiologist to report.

These radiographers were previously not trained to interpret X-ray images, though there are current trends where the
radiographers especially at post-graduate level are trained to interpret some selected X-ray images. This discourse has been contextualized from the perspective of a developing country from SubSaharan Africa where the title `radiographer` is used.

However, some of the observations pointed out may be of greater interest to not only the other developing
nations, but also to the more developed world to stimulate debate as to whether radiographers should
actually be trained and allowed to report on some selected X-ray
images cognizant of key legal implications that may arise as a result of this decision.

Radiol Open J. 2018; 3(1): 1-3. doi: 10.17140/ROJ-3-118

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