The Unofficial Guide to Radiology won the BIR/Philips

Trainee award for Excellence in 2015.   Tom Campion, radiology trainee at Bart’s Hospital, London and Valandis Kostas, Senior Radiographer from Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital  reflect on the latest addition to the series which focuses on chest x-ray interpretation and is designed to support professionals and students.

A follow-up to the Unofficial Guide to Radiology, and part of the Unofficial Guide to Medicine series, this new book The Unofficial Guide to Radiology: 100 Practice Chest X-rays, with full colour annotations and full X-ray reports  has at its heart the inspiring idea that the development of educational resources should be driven by those who use them. The result is a fantastic resource for reporting radiographers, medical students, junior doctors in any specialty, providing a comprehensive and practical approach to chest x-ray interpretation.

Right from the start, the book’s cover is self-explanatory and is easily perceived to be about chest X-ray interpretations.   The 100 chest X-ray cases are presented in a test-yourself format, with the images and case history presented on one page and the interpretation and report on the next.

The cases are separated in three coloured divisions: Standard (orange), Intermediate (purple) and Advanced (blue). The first page provides the reader with a short clinical indication followed by the associated chest X-ray in high quality, all in one page. The second page then evaluates the technical features, again using a colour code scheme which is then diagrammatically presented on the same chest X-ray, but on a smaller scale. It may be coincidence that the orange, purple and blue technical features can also be perceived as standard, intermediate and advanced technical points to look out for from a radiographer’s perspective. Finally, there is a short but precise summary demonstrating a report of the chest X-ray followed by further management for the patient.

The image quality is excellent in comparison to most other available textbooks, with crisp full-page images allowing the detail of the images to be explored – crucial in the days of PACS when every possible abnormality can be magnified a hundredfold.

Each ‘answer’ page has a consistent format, embedding a sensible interpretation pathway, and a clear layout highlighting both normal and abnormal findings. The consistency, and the detailed and comprehensive annotations, allows the reader to build up an idea of ‘normal’ over the course of the cases, continuously reinforcing important structures to check on every radiograph.

The multidisciplinary approach to development also comes through strongly, with suggested first management steps in response to each radiograph placing the interpretation firmly in the pragmatic clinical world. However, the ‘reporting’ style employed also develops familiarity with the language of radiologists; if this can sometimes seems overly formal or formulaic, it serves a purpose in ensuring that clinicians and radiologists are on the same page.

The clinical cases provided are realistic and are what you expect to find whether in Accident and Emergency and/or outpatient, GP clinics. From pathologies to pneumothoraxes, fractures to line insertions, most scenarios are covered in this book.

Valandis Kostas strongly recommends this book to all grade and advanced radiographers. He observes that the book provides the patient pathway link from clinical presentation to radiology, to treatment and type of follow up imaging required i.e. CT and/or chest clinic referral. The layout enables understanding of the acquired chest x-ray, vital for best practice.

He particularly applauded the section on quality of the chest X-ray, using the similar 10 point image quality check radiographers use in their clearance of X-rays they undertake. Patient I.D, rotation, penetration and inspiration are a few examples. Furthermore, the case layout educates radiographers the importance of these checks to aid image interpretation for diagnosis whilst encouraging learning about chest pathologies. This will eliminate the repetitious perception of the chest X-ray and it will encourage radiographers to maintain high quality chest radiographs for accurate diagnosis and reduce false negatives and false positives.

The clinical details provided in the case vignettes are of a level of detail that surpasses most of those seen in clinical practice; hopefully, the detail provided here will also serve to demonstrate to clinicians who read the book how fundamental these details are, and serve as a resource on helpful requesting as well as interpretation of chest radiographs.

An important area for radiographers and radiologists that is not covered in as much detail is the inadequate chest x-ray, and perhaps the book could be improved by including a few examples of misses/near misses from poor quality radiographs in order to educate readers on when a repeat X-ray is required.

Tom Campion, trainee radiologist  would happily recommend the book to anyone whose job involves X-ray reporting as it delivers a solid foundation in interpretation skills and serves  as both a thoughtfully structured introduction to the beginner and a handy reference to the more experienced.

Both Valandis and Tom felt that the book would make a great app or online tool  in the future.

The Unofficial Guide to Radiology £19.99

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Unofficial-Guide-Radiology-Practice-Annotations/dp/1910399019

Images: (Top left) Tom Campion, (top right) Valandis Kostas.

AUTHORS:

by Mohammed Rashid Akhtar MBBS BSc (Hons) FRCR (Author), Na’eem Ahmed MBBS BSc (Author), Nihad Khan MBBS BSc (Author)

EDITORS:

Mark Rodrigues MBChB(Hons) BSc(Hons) FRCR (Editor), Zeshan Qureshi BM BSc (Hons) MSc MRCPCH (Editor)