Making everything human…

Radiologists can lead quite a lonely professional life, they need to be in an office with dim lighting to view CT scans/Xrays and MRIs, they are often isolated from other departments.  The work may feel impersonal and mechanical.

A few years ago a young Israeli radiologist named Yehonatan Turner had an idea of moving his fellow practitioners.  Turner arranged with patients consent to have their photographs taken and attach them to their scans.  The radiologists completed a questionnaire and all of them reported that seeing the patient’s photograph made them feel more empathy and connected.

However the most startling change was discovered 3 months later.  Often Radiologists are asked to look for the obvious a broken bone, however they are so skilled they can identify incidental abnormalities such as cysts.  Turner gave the Radiologists Xrays/scans with the photos attached and a number of incidentals were identified.  Three months later Turner presented the Radiologists with 81 scans he had identified where incidentals had been found on all of them.  The difference was that, there were no photos attached.  The outcome was startling 80% of the incidental findings were not reported.

There is some-one behind every picture/word/number business is human.

Think about what you can do this week:-

This story comes from “To Sell is Human” – Daniel H Pink – contact nuggets if you would like a workshop based on the book

bev@nuggetsoflearning.co.uk