Public Relations for Radiology

Chronicles of Small Beer Public Relations for Radiology One of the ongoing dilemmas of contemporary medical radiology is the public understanding of just how this health care specialty has grown into the general understanding of most Americans who depend on modern medical care to preserve their health and to save their lives. The dilemmas that have confronted radiologists for the past 60 years had two fundamental challenges that vexed the national societies and were the challenges of my career. To be fair, in the 20th century, a lot of people had some faint information about the discovery of x-rays, which could contribute to growing health care. Possibly as many people who underwent medical x-ray procedures did not outnumber even more Americans who looked at x-ray machines in shoe stores to wiggle their toes in shoes they were about to buy. Others were dimly aware that their local hospitals had x-ray machines, and so did the offices of some of their doctors. But one of the problems for the specialty of radiology was the failure of most people to understand how the specialty was created and how doctors who declared their x-ray specialty were specially trained, well qualified, and vital consultants to most other doctors who made growing use of x-rays, either by referral to radiology specialists or by their own performance of procedures on their patients. In those same decades, the growth of other medical specialties posed comparable dilemmas. But gradually, the concept arose that specialists trained in surgery should be the only ones who performed operations. A bit later, the notion that doctors specially qualified in obstetrics should be the ones to deliver babies gained some acceptance. There still was a lack of appreciation by many patients that their doctors had to rely on radiology and pathology for accurate diagnosis of diseases. And there was a broad notion that only surgeons could cope with cancer, although strong x-ray devices could help palliate and relieve the pain of untreatable malignant problems. In the early 1950s, representatives of the x-ray marketing section of Eastman Kodak, then the dominant provider of x-ray films, met with the American College of Radiology (ACR) Board of Chancellors and advised them that the ACR should make a growing effort to promote the value of diagnostic radiologic procedures and emphasize the need for qualified x-ray specialists to deliver radiologic services at the request of primary care physicians, surgeons, and other medical subspecialists. Kodak had made a survey that indicated

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the general lack of understanding about radiologists as critical medical specialists. The ACR should obtain a public relations director. And with a broad commitment, Kodak would provide information efforts using its advertising agency and assigned public relations consultants. The ACR agreed to follow Kodak’s suggestions. So an ACR commission was created, and Wendell Scott, a sophisticated St Louis radiologist and ACR board member, was made its chairman. Bill Stronach, the ACR’s executive director, employed Hugh Jones, who was experienced as a radio station news reporter in Chicago. Some 5 years later, Kodak persuaded its advertising agency, the J. Walter Thompson company in New York, to hire Hugh Jones to manage its radiology public relations element. And in the summer of 1961, Bill Stronach hired me as the ACR’s public relations expert. I had 4 years of press management with my first medical employer, the American Osteopathic Association. I was pleased to get a new challenge. My first major effort was to conduct press representation for the annual meetings of the American Roentgen Ray Society, the Radiological Society of North America, the American Radium Society, and the Canadian Association of Radiology. I also had the assignment to expand the monthly ACR news bulletin, to continue editing a quarterly publication, Your Radiology, and to coordinate with Hugh Jones and the marketing team of Eastman Kodak. We developed some new projects. And in a matter of a few weeks, Bill Stronach gave me some new assignments to provide staff support for ACR commissions and committees. One of the concepts we accepted was a series of efforts to direct attention to publications for other physician groups. The arrival of mammography was a very early project, creating communications efforts that still exist and are even more vital than they were in 1961. All of this was the expansion of awareness by the ACR and the other national societies that they needed to tell their stories about the growth and importance of radiologic procedures and the significance of the training and qualification and competence of radiologists working with doctors who accepted responsibility for their patients. There was much to come, and I was greatly rewarded to be part of the efforts to tell the true stories about radiology.

Otha Linton, MSJ Potomac, MD