Introduction: While artificial intelligence (AI) and recent developments in deep learning (DL) have sparked interest in medical imaging, there has been little commentary on the impact of AI on imaging technologists. The aim of this survey was to understand the attitudes, applications and concerns among nuclear medicine and radiography professionals in Australia with regard to the rapidly emerging applications of AI.Methods: An anonymous online survey with invitation to participate was circulated to nuclear medicine and radiography members of the Rural Alliance in Nuclear Scintigraphy and the Australian Society of Medical Imaging and Radiation Therapy. The survey invitations were sent to members via email and as a push via social media with the survey open for 10 weeks. All information collected was anonymised and there is no disclosure of personal information as it was de‐identified from commencement.Results: Among the 102 respondents, there was a high level of acceptance of lower order tasks (e.g. patient registration, triaging and dispensing) and less acceptance of high order task automation (e.g. surgery and interpretation). There was a low priority perception for the role of AI in higher order tasks (e.g. diagnosis, interpretation and decision making) and high priority for those applications that automate complex tasks (e.g. quantitation, segmentation, reconstruction) or improve image quality (e.g. dose / noise reduction and pseudo CT for attenuation correction). Medico‐legal, ethical, diversity and privacy issues posed moderate or high concern while there appeared to be no concern regarding AI being clinically useful and improving efficiency. Mild concerns included redundancy, training bias, transparency and validity.Conclusion: Australian nuclear medicine technologists and radiographers recognise important applications of AI for assisting with repetitive tasks, performing less complex tasks and enhancing the quality of outputs in medical imaging. There are concerns relating to ethical aspects of algorithm development and implementation.
20 March 2023 in Journal of Medical Radiation Sciences
Introduction: The need to balance pain management and radiographic image quality is at the forefront of patient care in diagnostic radiography. This study aimed to identify the decision‐making that radiographers employ when undertaking planar diagnostic imaging for pain‐afflicted adult trauma patients and the factors that influence these decisions. Methods: A virtual focus group interview was undertaken with six experienced Australian radiographers using a realistic scenario and questions based on it. Thematic analysis was employed to explore how radiographers approached planar diagnostic imaging of trauma patients and what influenced decisions regarding patient movement. Results: Five key factors in radiographers' decision‐making were identified: assistance from the multidisciplinary team, understanding the patient, pain reduction methods, the patient being informed and radiographer competence. Radiographers were found to further utilise professional knowledge of image interpretation and anatomy and physiology, in conjunction with interpersonal capabilities, to undertake radiographic examinations. Conclusion: The decision‐making process that informs the movement of pain‐afflicted adult trauma patients is multifactorial, aligning with the broad healthcare principles of multidisciplinary teamwork, holistic management of the patient and professional knowledge and practice. Further research is needed to explore correlations with different patient groups to validate this research.