Podcast: Learning Radiology Management Skills

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_crop","fid":"11568","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image media-image-left","id":"media_crop_1305947500652","media_crop_h":"0","media_crop_image_style":"-1","media_crop_instance":"202","media_crop_rotate":"0","media_crop_scale_h":"0","media_crop_scale_w":"0","media_crop_w":"0","media_crop_x":"0","media_crop_y":"0","style":"margin: 0px; float: left;","title":" ","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]The Academy of Radiology Leadership and Management, launched last year to provide professional skills to radiology practitioners, has awarded its first two Certificates of Achievement. Lisa Lowe, MD, and Amilcare Gentili, MD, participated in 50 hours of education on topics of growing importance in today’s health care environment.

The academy combines courses from five sponsoring organizations under one umbrella, filling the knowledge gaps in areas of finance, human resources, professionalism, and legal/contracting, among others. The organizations are the Radiological Society of North America, the Association of University Radiologists, American Roentgen Ray Society, the Society of Chairs of Academic Radiology Departments, and the Association of Administrators in Academic Radiology Departments.

For Lowe, those skills became necessary when she took on the role of radiology residency program director at the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine and department chair. “There’s not really a way to prepare yourself for that kind of thing,” she told Diagnostic Imaging. “And you don’t know what you don’t know.”

Gentili also found he needed more of these skills - particularly in finances and negotiation - when he assumed his role as section chief of radiology at the San Diego VA Medical Center. “During medical school and fellowship, you don’t learn about the business part of medicine,” he said in an interview. For example, when he prepares his budget or puts together a justification to why he needs new equipment or staff, he relies on these management skills, said Gentili, clinical professor of radiology at University of California San Diego.

In this podcast, Lowe explains why she sought these courses and what skills are critical for today’s radiology leaders.