Happy World Radiography Day

Do you need information about medical imaging or Radiotherapy? Ask the Radiographer? Who? The radiographer!
Very often patients and even our colleagues in the hospital do not know who we are. White uniform…must be a doctor or a nurse. World Radiography Day is an excellent day to present yourselves every year again, to clarify all aspects of your profession and also to motivate upcoming students to choose for this interesting and many sided work.
Of course radiographers work in a healthcare team, but most of the times they are the last link in the chain in the contact with patients, while producing the image or planning and delivering radiotherapy.
At the European level one of the first actions of The European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS) after its establishment in 2008 was to agree on a definition of a radiographer and on the use of a single title to indicate the profession in European documents. Of course all national titles stay in place.
The EFRS definition is as follows:
Radiographers are medical imaging and radiotherapy experts who:

• are professionally accountable to the patients’ physical and psychosocial wellbeing, prior to, during and following examinations or therapy
• take an active role in justification and optimisation of medical imaging and radio therapeutic procedures
• are key-persons in radiation safety of patients and third persons in accordance with the “As Low As Reasonably Achievable (ALARA)” principle and relevant legislation

This is followed by an explanation of the professional fields medical imaging, radiotherapy and nuclear medicine and a list of national titles.
For the full text and lots of other information and documents have a look at www.efrs.eu

I wish you a successful 8th of November!!

Dorien Pronk-Larive
CEO EFRS

The European Federation of Radiographer Societies (EFRS) represents over 100.000 Radiographers and over 8.000 students through 37 national societies/professional bodies, 1 trade union and 54 institutions involved in radiography education all over the geographical region of Europe.