LAUSR

For many years, interventional radiologists have been at the forefront of innovation. We have been pioneers in the field of technological developments and innovation in medicine that have shaped an industry and which has evolved into being one of the most dynamic and fast-growing subspecialties. However, the way we interact with our patients has not changed significantly, and we have to admit that our relationship with them has been ‘‘very remote’’ [1]. The majority of patients don’t know much about IRs until they are on our interventional suite. We are often seen as the technicians for our clinical colleagues. Many of our patients will probably never ever see us again, which makes us almost invisible to the patient who will most likely see another clinical colleague for his follow-up appointment. This is a recognized problem, and apart from the obvious issues that affect the quality of patient care, it is not good ‘‘customer’’ service. Of course patients should not only be treated as customers, but when it comes to promoting IR and being competitive, we need to embrace the concept of customer service and customer engagement [2]. These phrases are commonplace in the corporate world and are a core component of every modern business endeavor. As it has been emphasized by many senior IRs, interventional radiology needs to obtain its own identity and establish pathways that will allow us to interact with patients and maintain strong patient engagement preand postoperatively [3]. One of the traditional limitations to achieving this is the lack of physical interaction with patients [4]. In most institutions, IR physicians don’t have clinics or dedicated bed space in the ward or even admitting rights, even if this has been shown to be cost-effective [5, 6]. However, in a world where most people expect services to be available 24/7 and even online, we need to review how we work, evolve to embrace the changes in the modern world and adopt different working practices to interact with our patients. Social media have indeed revolutionized the way people interact with each other as well as with service providers and companies [7]. Most companies have shifted their marketing budgets toward online advertisement through social media platforms and search engines. This is because of the huge volume of people who interact with these platforms every day. Fortunately, there has been great progress in terms of establishing a strong social media presence for our interventional radiology societies, but this is not enough. Marketing has now become more simple, and you can access hundreds if not thousands of people by just using your personal social media account. We believe this offers great opportunities to promote our specialty and inform the patients about how they can benefit from the various innovations that are now available in IR. The help of marketing professionals is always important and welcome, but we now have the tools to promote our specialty ourselves on a daily basis and at a fraction of the cost [8]. There has been rapid growth in the area of online medical consultations and doctor’s directories. Expectations have also changed over the years in the field of medicine, and now patients increasingly are able to and expect to have access to all kinds of medical services online, including procedural information and even formal & Gregory C. Makris [email protected]