Yorkshire and Humber School of Radiology to be ran by a radiographer; a bottle of red with lunch blamed

In very specific, but very silly news, The Yorkshire and Humber School of Radiology and Health Education England have chosen a non-radiologist, supposedly Dr Anne-Marie Culpan, as its head. She has no experience of radiology and isn’t medically qualified. She is in fact, a highly capable academic radiographer who has a PhD and is a senior lecturer in breast imaging at the University of Leeds. So no slouch, but definitely not a radiologist – a fact so concerning to the Royal College of Radiologists (RCR) that they are trying to urgently meet with the school to ‘explore how the damage caused by this ill-informed and ill-conceived decision can be limited’.

Now I don’t seriously believe the interview panel didn’t know the difference between the two, but according to the RCR, there was no radiologist on the interview panel, and an experienced and qualified radiologist did apply for the job, so it’s in play. For those unaware, here’s a simple guide that works for most situations –  radiographers use the scanners to do the test; radiologists look at the images to see what’s wrong.

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As Anthony points out in the comments, the line between radiography and radiology can get a bit blurry. Some radiographers give radiotherapy treatments; others report on the results of tests in the same way as radiologists. The description above is not to be conclusive.

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Now for why this appointment was exceedingly dumb.

1. Head of Schools are responsible for delivering the training set out by the Royal College of Radiologists. Anne-Marie Culpan cannot even be a full member of this college as she is not a radiologist, leaving her outside of the loop when discussing clinical training.
2. They are responsible for pastoral and training support of all radiologists in the Yorkshire and Humber area, including those in higher specialty training. Anne-Marie Culpan has not done even foundational medical training, leaving a question open about how much understanding and empathy she will have with complicated training problems.
3. Anne-Marie Culpan would be responsible for any concerns raised about doctors. While I generally don’t hold much of a candle to the argument that only doctors can pass judgement on other doctors, I quite like those in senior positions to understand what the juniors should and should not be doing. It’d be extremely inappropriate for a radiologist to be in charge of supervising radiographers in training, it is no different the other way around.
4. I do not know much about Dr Culpan, but her academic and radiographic work seems to have been very focused on breast imaging.  It seems hard to visualise how someone will go from being a very specialist research and teacher in one sub-speciality of a profession, to supervising 125 trainees going through generalist and sub-specialty training in a totally different profession.

While just one appointment, it does seem to part of a trend that doctors aren’t quite necessary under the people running the NHS. To expect a radiographer to understand what its like to be a radiologist and do so well enough to train consultants in that area is a ridiculous idea. It’s the equivalent of having a doctor train nurses or pharmacists, or in the non-medical world, a mainstream school teacher trying to train special school teachers. Let’s hope Health Education England don’t try such a dumb appointment again.