The Origins Of RadCast: Giving Radiologist’s A Voice
They say that every story has a beginning. This is ours.
It's August 2018. I (Muhammad) am celebrating after just getting my offer for a training post in the North West School of Radiology (Mersey). I'm over the moon, the hard work has paid off.
*Ring ring goes my mobile*
It's Uzoma (Uzi). Uzi at this stage was a ST2 radiology trainee who I had met earlier in the year and had been an absolute legend by letting me part of the project he was working on.
Uzi: "MK, how did you get on"
Me: "Got in, see you come August"!
Uzi: "Top work...there's something else I wanna chat to you about"
Me: "Yea..."?
Uzi: "I wanna do a PhD"
Me: "Huh, what?! Where did that come from"?
Uzi: "I don't know. But you know, I think there's more we can be doing..."
Me: "But why a PhD"?
Uzi: "Well...isn't that the route"?
Cue the 2-3 hour long chat between me and Uzi where we bounced ideas back and forth about ways of trying to satisfy that "creative itch". Then the lightbulb moment came. Radiology at that time, and to a lesser degree now, suffered from an image problem. From being described as a specialty of doctors who were unable to talk to patients to doctors who were vitamin D deficient from being in the dark all day, radiology didn't get the best press. But every year, radiology was oversubscribed with applicants and had 100% fill rates. So what was going on? Clearly, there was a disconnect between the perception of radiology at medical school and at the junior doctor stage. It was only when the student or doctor got an experience of radiology that their viewpoints totally changed and drove them to pursue radiology as a career. So if that's the case, why not get the word out there about how, well, how cool radiology was. Put a spotlight on radiology and give radiologists a voice. And therein lay the origins of RadCast (RADiology-podCASTs).
But we knew we couldn’t do it alone.
You see, this was uncharted territory for us. I hadn’t even started radiology training yet so who was I to go around interviewing people about the world of radiology? Plus, as we fleshed out RadCast further, we realised this was not a two-man job. Cue Jamie entering the scene.
Jamie at the time was also in the same year as Uzi. I had never met him at this point but Uzi talked highly of Jamie (a real bromance) and frankly, Uzi was spot on. Jamie just got it from day 1. Plus have you heard Jamie’s voice? It’s like perfect for podcasts (and so soothing). The only thing Jamie asked was “when do we start”? And just like that, the RadCast trio was formed and as they say, the rest is history.
Fast forward to today and we’ve recorded 42 podcasts that have reached an insane number of people across the world. We never anticipated this and to date, we still pinch ourselves about it! From the growing role of artificial intelligence to gamification in radiology, we hope RadCast has given both radiologists and non-radiologists a glimpse into the many awesome things happening within the field.
Moving forward, we’ve now made this blog to shed more light into the many interesting topics within radiology. That’s why we’ve called it ‘Radiology Ramblings’ because that’s exactly what they are. Short, partially structured pieces of work talking about an area of radiology that has tickled our fancy. But more importantly, we want to use this blog to connect with more of you. So if you’re working on something cool within the radiology space and think it is podcast worthy or you just have questions about radiology as a career, please do reach out to us via our email (hello@radcast.co.uk). Finally, make sure you’ve subscribed to our newsletter so you get our ramblings hot off the press!
Till next time,
From your friendly neighbourhood radiologist
Muhammad (RadCast Co-Founder)