Dr Deepak Patkar, Chairman, ICRI, talks about his vision for ICRI, state of radiology education in India, challenges to be tackled and more, in an interaction with Lakshmipriya Nair
Dr Patkar, congratulations on taking charge as ICRI’s Chairman. What is your vision for ICRI?
Thanks. Taking charge as the Chairman of ICRI would be a great responsibility. Ever since its establishment in 1976, ICRI has always been involved in encouraging and uplifting academic activities in the field of radiology. With advancements in technology, radiology has now evolved as a prime branch of medicine and plays a key role in diagnosis. In fact, it has now moved from mere diagnostics to molecular imaging and therapeutics. Still, today there is a major lag in rural India when compared to the advances available in big cities and tertiary care institutes.
ICRI would work towards uplifting the quality of radiology training, bringing uniformity throughout the nation in terms of radiology education and bring it at par with the international standards. I believe that being up-to-date is essential for each and every radiologist as this is a branch which is changing at a very rapid pace. ICRI can be a platform which could provide easy, authentic and quality access to these recent updates in the field of radiology.
What is the state of radiology education in India?
Yes, we do have machineries as well as technology almost at par with the international standards but if we see, at the national level, these are available only in less than 25 per cent of the nation and are within reach of even a lesser percentage of the population. As far as radiology education is concerned, there are mainly two-year diploma and three-year master courses in our country. There is a major requirement of short term fellowship programmes which could provide training in a specialised branch and periodically acquaint the fellows with advances in that specific branch. Though there has been an increase in the number of CMEs and seminars in recent years, these are mainly held in the major cities and the periphery still remains untouched. Being a national organisation, ICRI has to speak in terms of the entire country where we see that still a lot has to be done to uplift the standard of radiology training.
What are the major challenges in radiology education today?
A challenge specific to the field of radiology is its fast pace of advancement which necessitates that every radiologist to keep him/her self up-to-date. A person trained, say 20 years back, might have not been trained in many of the techniques in use today.
In this scenario, we specifically need an organisation which can provide a platform to bring these updates to the reach of each and every practising radiologist. Another problem is that the latest technology is available only to a small strata of students who are getting trained in big corporate hospitals or tertiary level medical colleges in major cities.
Lack of good teachers to impart quality education in radiology is a major concern. How can it be mitigated?
It is a fact that the best students from various medical colleges opt for radiology as their super-speciality for post graduation. It is our responsibility to use the cream of the society to shape the future of the Indian healthcare system. I agree there is a lack of good teachers when we take the entire country in perspective, but at the same time we have to agree that we have a good number of highly competent and qualified senior radiologists in our country. Thanks to the advances in information technology; we can make these teachers reach out to nationwide radiology trainees. ICRI, with help of other funding organisations, will specifically work to bridge this distance between the experts and the students. We need to increase the number of CMEs and try to organise these even in smaller towns and cities. The best resource to be exploited will be online CMEs. Soft copies, online lectures and training could be made available to the members through the ICRI site.
A huge gap exists between the requirement and availability of radiologists in India, especially in rural areas. How can ICRI reduce this gap?
This is a major issue, not just in radiology but the entire healthcare system. We, as radiologists, have the benefit of teleradiology wherein an expert from say Mumbai or Delhi can report for hundreds of villages and townships from across the country. ICRI will support and encourage such teleradiology networks and organisations. At the same time, it will take efforts to set a benchmark for their basic standards. The final goal would be that each and every town in this country have their own qualified and competent radiologist. I believe it will surely be possible with continued efforts of government organisations, ICRI and the private sector.
What would be your focus areas as ICRI’s Chairman?
My major focus would be first to ensure that Indian radiologists can keep pace with this rapidly advancing field of medicine. At the same time, there should be a uniform basic standard for radiology at a national level. We see other colleges of radiology across the globe play a major role in guiding and shaping the radiology education and standards. ICRI can be a unique body to ensure this in our country as well.
Three immediate steps to improve the radiology sector?
It’s difficult to summarise them into three, but:
Firstly, an effort to increase the number of CMEs and seminars to see that we cover as many cities as possible and make use of our IT resources to make these available online for almost every radiologist 24 x7.
Secondly, to actively participate in shaping the radiology training programmes and to work with authorities for bringing in more and more short term fellowships and training programmes to benefit upcoming as well as practising radiologists.
Thirdly, to support and encourage teleradiology services in our country as this can prove to be a fast and effective way to raise radiology standards throughout the country.
lakshmipriya.nair@expressindia.com