Climate impact of medical imaging needs radical action

I agree with Maskell’s analysis of the rapid growth in demand for medical imaging.1 An anecdotal illustration of this growth is that, on my first nightshift as the on-call radiology registrar in Edinburgh in 2009, I received no calls the whole night, whereas a current trainee says they had more computed tomography requests overnight than Liz Truss served days as prime minister.The effect of this increased demand is keenly felt in radiology departments across the country but is not restricted to workforce or financial considerations. The climate impact of imaging (particularly for high energy consumption modalities such as computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging) is an ever growing concern—inappropriate imaging demonstrably does more harm than good. Maskell says that “it will require something much more radical than a new set of guidelines” to buck this trend. I fear that ecological catastrophe will ultimately deliver that radical impetus, but when prime…
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