The challenge of environmental sustainability in radiology training and potential solutions.

ABSTRACT

The environmental impact of training has been poorly recognised for many years. With the emergence of high-profile climate activists and a wider appreciation of the need for sustainable healthcare, training within radiology can no longer be excused from its responsibility to consider the environment in its actions. In this paper, we aim to evaluate the environmental impact of the travel undertaken by trainees within the Peninsula training programme, with the aim of developing practices and providing suggestions (evidence-based where possible) on how to improve the impact on the environment of trainee travel. We envisage that many of the lessons and suggestions may be transferrable to other training schemes in the UK and further afield. During the early months of 2020, in addition to the environmental crisis, COVID-19 escalated to a pandemic resulting in the alteration of working practices across the UK (and the rest of the world). This led to many environmentally beneficial working practices being adopted in Radiology in the South West Peninsula Deanery, and throughout this paper we have evaluated these changes and used our collective experience of these to inform our suggestions on how to improve the environmental sustainability of Medical and Radiological training.