Teresa Maristany, specialist of the Spanish Society of Medical Radiology and head of the Radiology Service of the Sant Joan de Deu hospital.
Maristany, who is also a member of the Spanish Society of Medical Radiology (SERAM), considers “humanization essential when caring for patients, especially pediatric ones”, whom the radiologist attends to. In this sense, she explains that “in the Service you are given much importance to state-of-the-art technology so that it radiates much less to children, which causes greater responsibility when it comes to use diagnostic techniques that do not irradiateespecially when doing ultrasounds and MRIs”.
To achieve this humanization, the specialist details some of the initiatives carried out from her Service to achieve it, such as “having a pediatric special environment that has from a comfortable room so that the mother can feed or breastfeed the child until they have gafas 3D and headphones that reduce external noise so that children can watch the movie or series they want.
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“We must try not to sedate these patients to avoid some pulmonary or central nervous system complications that anesthesia can cause” |
One of the main goals proposed by Maristany is that “imaging techniques, such as magnetic resonanceare minimally invasive due to the little stamina of children to undergo this testwhich causes the need to anesthetize them to be able to perform it”. For this reason, it intends to “try not to sedate these patients to avoid some pulmonary or central nervous system complications that can cause anesthesia.
Bedside radiology as portable patient care
Another of the fundamental pillars that Maristany defends as “effective” for improve radiologist care to the patient is the call ‘bedside radiology‘. An initiative that “prevents children and parents from going to the hospital and allows the specialist to go wherever they are”.
This portable Radiology, if it had been had during the pandemic, “many people would have been perfectly diagnosed and many deaths preventedespecially in places for the elderly,” says Maristany. A way of seeing the specialty that “can also be extrapolated to the world of adults to avoid unnecessary transfers, thus helping the circulation of the economy and the decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2)“.
In short, these are some of the changes that Radiology is facing in Spain and allow “the radiologist to be a protector of the patient, a communicator with the clinician and an innovator, as well as being a teacher”. Despite all these tasks, Maristany assures that this specialist “is still focused on himself and not fully on the patient. A situation that is due to the lack of resources since patients need a wide range of hours to be treated and hospitals only work in the morning”. Therefore, “it is essential change the vision of Radiology in Spain“, concludes Maristany.
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