November is a month of reflection when we remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice, and the month when we celebrate World Radiography Day. Recently, I was privileged to attend the Radiography Awards ceremony in London to witness the amazing radiographers who gathered to receive their awards for their exceptional contributions to clinical, academic and research initiatives. There was a palpable atmosphere of excitement in 4 Hamilton Place from all who were there to watch radiographers who had and were taking the opportunities to enjoy and fulfil their career aspirations. Reflecting on the day when I received my College of Radiographers letter to inform me that I had passed my 2-year course at Dundee School of Radiography I never thought that over 50 years later, I would still have opportunities to work with staff and students from a range of cultural backgrounds, continue my work advising product manufacturers and universities, assessing, and reviewing graduate radiography programmes, and representing radiographers on key advisory boards.
Recently accepting the responsibility of representing Scotland on UK SCoR Council alongside my fellow members Sharon Stewart and Susann McCracken, is also a position of privilege and I see this as an opportunity to help shape the radiography profession of tomorrow and maintain the standards of practice that I signed up to all these years ago. Since my career began, the technological revolution in radiography and radiotherapy equipment has been exponential and continues to evolve through ground-breaking emerging and digital technologies. I believe in Scotland that we have reached a pivotal moment where we now have to make decisions which will be paramount to opening up more opportunities for radiographers to secure our future contribution to the delivery of radiology and radiotherapy services. Clearly, we have workforce shortages, burnout, few educational pathways into radiography, few career opportunities, ageing equipment and many individual and collective uncertainties. Education, leadership, cultural changes, and the development of entrepreneurial and business skills have been identified through political education and workforce reviews and key changes have been identified as being crucial for our abilities to advance our practices within today’s financial constraints.
When you read Pam’s story in this newsletter, who was one of my first Assistant Practitioner trainee’s it is proof that we have a workforce in waiting which if given the opportunity can increase our workforce, freeing up our radiographers to develop advanced skills and lead our profession into the future. The CoR Education and Framework 2023 has been designed to support and inform us of the pathways into radiography, through introducing Apprenticeships to Consultant levels of practice. We started this process of transforming our roles well over 20 years ago in Scotland and were champions at the time in providing a pathway into radiography but there is so much more we can collectively do in generating ideas for solutions and removing the barriers which have created this decline in our workforce capacity and career opportunities. I welcome hearing your voices to enable me to fulfil my role as UK SCoR Council member for Scotland, taking your voice to the organisation and the political tables.