Imaging, past present and future.

Imaging is one of the more recent medical disciplines arising out of Rontgens discovery of X-Rays in 1895. The acquisition of X-Ray equipment by the Medical Committee of the Belfast Royal Hospital in 1896 showed both foresight and a rapid decision making process that we might envy one hundred years later. The glass radiographs were taken and processed by two commercial photographic companies in the city and interpreted by the clinician. In 1903 John Rankin, having gained his MD working with John Symmington in the subject of radiographic anatomy, was appointed to the new Royal Victoria Hospital. Shortly after the first World War Maitland Beath joined the staff and Ralph Leman became the first Radiographer. It should be noted that neither Drs. Rankin or Beath had undergone any formal training. In 1925 Dr. (later Sir) Frank Montgomery was appointed assistant to Dr. Beath, having undergone six months training in Harley Street and acquired the Diploma in Medical Radiology-both Radio Diagnosis, Radio Therapy and Electrology from the University of Cambridge. This examination was later to become the DMRD of the Conjoint Board in London. The Faculty of Radiologists was formed in 1939 and housed as an autonomous Faculty by the Royal College of Surgeons in Lincoln's Inn. The DMRD, while deemed adequate for a consultant position in the rest of the United Kingdom, was viewed less favourably in Northern Ireland, where MD or other higher qualification was mandatory. Formal training based at the Royal Victoria Hospital commenced around 1950, but local graduates had to go to United Kingdom centres for the extensive physics element of the course, and it was not until 1967 that, with the good offices of the physicists at Belvoir Park, we were able to offer our own and other graduates a fully comprehensive training course. The Fellowship of the Faculty, later the Royal College of Radiologists, had become by 1962 the mandatory qualification for a consultant position in Northern Ireland. The syllabus for the Fellowship has continued to increase since that time with the addition of nuclear medicine, ultrasound, computerised tomographic scanning, magnetic resonance imaging and interventional radiology. The impact of the computer on what was already a highly technological speciality cannot be underestimated and will in my opinion lead inevitably to totally filmless departments, the image being recorded, distributed and viewed using digital technology. This will in turn make expertise, from any major centre in the …