ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented effect upon the National Health Service (NHS). Like other specialties, Interventional Radiology (IR) rapidly adapted to the evolving situation. Members of BSIR were surveyed to obtain a snapshot of the experiences of UK IRs in response to COVID-19. An electronic survey was compiled using Google Forms, approved by the BSIR Council Officers and distributed to BSIR members by email on 18 th April 2020. A total of 228 responses were received. The survey was open for a 14-day period and the data analysed in Microsoft Excel 365. The response rate was 29% (228/800). RESULTS: Two thirds of respondents work in a Tertiary unit and 33% deliver IR in a District Hospital. 84% have a day-case facility. After the COVID-19 crisis, 81% of respondents were able to maintain 24-7 On-call service. 59% of respondents had been required change their day to day practice to allow the on-call service to continue. 55% of respondents were involved in providing a central line service. Of those questioned, 91% continued to offer endovascular services, 98% genitourinary and 92% hepatobiliary services, although a degree of service reduction was described. 38% have provided IR trainees with additional training material during this pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: This survey has confirmed that the responses of UK IR departments to the COVID-19 crisis have ensured vital on-call and urgent services have continued, including ongoing availability of most IR sub-specialties. Availability of a day case facility has possibly influenced the positive response.
ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Twitter is the most used social media platform by medical professionals and has become an effective way to disseminate ideas and information. AIM: To evaluate Twitter usage by some of the larger diagnostic radiology (DR) and interventional radiology (IR) societies. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Data were collected from the publicly available Twitter analytics platform, Twitonomy™. Data collected included the number of followers, Twitter output, user engagement and changes of these parameters between January 2017 and January 2019. RESULTS: DR societies have the largest number of followers. The IR group increased its number of followers by 5139 (55%) compared with 10013 (18%) by the DR group during the period studied. In both years, the IR group posted more tweets/day compared with the DR group (6.6 vs. 4.7). Although user engagement increased for both IR and DR societies, the IR subgroup had a highly engaged user audience with a similar number of 'likes' to the DR group despite their larger Twitter following (DR 65500 vs. IR 14411 in 2019). CONCLUSIONS: The IR societies studied experienced comparable Twitter engagement to the larger DR societies. The societies with the smallest number of followers (BSIR and CIRSE) enjoyed the largest relative increase in followers over the study period. IR societies should be encouraged by these results to continue to publicize their work on social media and increase awareness of the specialty.
