Radiology Nurses Can Raise the Impact on Promoting IR

Being madly in love with all the advances in minimally invasive medicine and technology, I often tell my friends stories of how interventional radiology (IR) changes lives. One of these unintended stories led to a much bigger audience of TED community and spread the word about IR far beyond the circle of my friends. As the TED slogan promised, participating in the event (Kutsenko) made me realize that our ideas of better medicine are worth sharing. It also made me think that better communication with the public is possible, and it does not take genius. It takes a willingness to try.

We know that IR with its broad procedural spectrum, safety of minimally invasive approach, lower requirement for anesthesia and hospitalization, and cost-effectiveness has a strong stand in the evolving universal healthcare practice model. But, as Goethe said, knowing is not enough; we must apply (Goethe, 1788). Then, how can we as medical community increase the exercise of IR procedures? The starting point is to accept that many people, including medical professionals, do not know what diseases we can treat and what diagnostic or therapeutic services we can provide. Either it is a palliative treatment of metastases, or elective embolization of uterine fibroids, or emergent lysis of pulmonary embolism—it is our responsibility to find the appropriate patients and let both patients and primary physicians know what options we have to offer.

The second critical focus is to expand the net of health care professionals who understand the clinical scenarios and have a good report with patients and other clinicians. This is where radiology nurses, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants can play an incredibly important role. In the current patient-centered value-based health care system, radiology nurses are at the forefront of patient care and interdepartmental communication. They can prescreen the patients at the emergency rooms and initiate IR consults, maintain long-term comprehensive wound care for patients with chronic limb ischemia, or participate in interdisciplinary tumor boards and provide patient stewardship during oncologic treatments. The unique position of nurses is that they do not merely address the patient's symptoms, but also build an ongoing relationship promoting patients' trust and confidence. After all, we understand that, when offered new procedures and new technologies, patients tend to trust and more accurately follow the advice of those who understand their family conditions, culture, and beliefs. The social dimension is as essential as the scientific expertise. Therefore, in this work against sickness, we begin not with genetic or cellular interactions, but with human ones (Gawande & America, 2007).

Finally, during the critical times of COVID-19 pandemic when every health care resource is at the dearth (Emanuel et al., 2020), it is more than ever vital to provide the most efficient patient triage, perform the least invasive procedures with consequent faster discharge, and efficiently engage all members of the team to provide care for the sick. The current health care catastrophe makes a powerful moral argument to promote the culture of minimally invasive comprehensive clinical care of IR.

It is important for all health care team members to understand that our role in medicine is much larger than to solely maintain patients’ survival. With an increasing stress of high disease toll, social interactions with patients and colleagues will determine long-term outcomes for all of us. Staying assertive and kind, finding the best treatment solutions, and valuing opinions of each other will go a long way. Every one of us has an ability to meaningfully contribute to the evolution of medicine and the well-being of our community. Choose your niche in supporting IR—look for the right patients, talk to your colleagues, be on social media, write articles, tell the stories of how IR changes lives.