You never do imagine you’ll spend much time sitting inside a giant tube while a machine spinning around you continually hums and haws. Lying down and getting an ultrasound, CT scanner or similar imaging carried out can be a little worrying if you don’t have a clue what’s going on.

That’s why having a good radiologist at hand to get you scanned is the difference between a potentially intense experience flying by without a problem and having a scan that will make you never want to get back in the room again.

When someone goes in for a scan, what exactly are radiologists looking for and what exactly is it they’re doing? In this short post we’ll breakdown what’s going on when you’re in there and what a radiologist is up to.

What is that a radiologist does?

A radiologist is a doctor who carries out some imaging work to see if any symptoms a patient has could be something to investigate and treat.

What types of things do radiologists do?

You’ll already know what an X-ray or Ultrasound machine looks like, but other imaging treatments radiologists carry out include:

• Fluoroscopy

• A continuous X-ray scan is done with a machine that moves around as you lie down
• Magnetic resonance imaging
  • more commonly known as an MRI
• Nuclear medicine
  • Where a patient takes a radiopharmaceutical, and its journey around the body is followed. A common form of this would be the PET scan

Is a radiologist the same as a radiographer?

No, and it’s important to know the difference. While a radiologist is usually a doctor, a radiographer isn’t. A radiographer can take imaging and carry out an X-ray or CT scan, but they aren’t allowed to say what it could be or diagnosis results. 

It is usually why when someone has a scan carried out that they have to wait for a result as the images need to be passed on a radiologist who will write a report that your doctor then needs to see.

What is that a radiologist is looking for?

Well, it depends on where they’re looking. For example, if a radiologist were looking at someone’s head to see if there was a tumour, they’d be processing image information in a completely different way than if they were looking at a broken foot on an X-ray.

Radiologists are the people who help connect the dots between imaging and other tests a patient has carried out and can be the lynchpin of the clinical team treating a patient.

Are there different types of radiologists?

Well, yes and no. While radiologists are necessarily all doing the same thing, the types of radiology carried out are entirely different. When someone is going in for a scan, that’s diagnostic radiology, i.e. they’re checking symptoms and hoping to provide a diagnosis for the patient that can lead to the next stage of treatment.

On the flip side of that, there is interventional radiology. You don’t sit in a big tube or anything but are usually in an operating theatre or outpatient theatre so minimal surgery can be carried out. A radiologist will often be the person carrying out this small surgery which could take the form of a biopsy, targeted injection or drainage while using a camera.

And when it comes to interventional radiology, there’s a whole subcategory of specialities with the likes of vascular interventional radiology and neurological interventional radiology all varying aspects of that.

Can someone pick their radiologist?

Most of us in the UK will meet a radiologist when going to the hospital. Of course, there are specialist clinics like One Welbeck that carry out diagnostic imaging service if you want a scan done privately.

What is someone looking for in a good radiologist?

Because they perform double duty to provide a diagnosis and liaise with a team, a good radiologist is an excellent communicator. Of course it helps on the patient side that they can clearly explain everything going on to put someone at ease.