Abstract
This chapter outlines the use of discussion and storytelling between radiographers within the Diagnostic Imaging Department (DID). This doctoral study explores the culture in a DID, in the East of England. The data are discussed in relation to the departmental culture and to other studies of healthcare staff. Diagnostic radiographers discuss their work and share stories with one another as they are doing it. Radiographers appear to quickly lapse into storytelling about work, using these shared experiences as both learning opportunities and collegiate competition.
In 2011 I completed my doctoral thesis titled ‘An ethnographic study of the culture in a Diagnostic Imaging Department’. I was interested in studying the culture of my own profession and ethnography was the obvious choice.
I am a diagnostic radiographer with 21 years’ experience. I worked as a clinical radiographer for eight years, then I moved into education and I am currently an associate professor at a university in the East of England. I have had close involvement with many diagnostic radiographers working in placement hospitals associated with the university. The hospital where this research was carried out is one of these placement hospitals.
My perspective is therefore not one of a detached, objective researcher. I am familiar with the working practices and culture of diagnostic radiographers and how the departments in which they work function on a day-to-day basis. I am also familiar with current challenges within the profession of radiography, both in clinical practice and in education. As an educator at the university, I have contact with many of the diagnostic radiographers in the region due to the student radiographers being placed at hospitals within the region. I am conscious about the way in which I write; as a diagnostic radiographer, I have been taught to write in a factual, ‘evidence-based’ way, presenting information in an objective manner with little emotional involvement so that my work is open to scientific scrutiny. The production of an ethnographic text was therefore a real challenge to me, and one with which I continue to grapple. There is, of course, an ever-present danger that ethnographic research such as this may be seen as un-scientific in a field such as radiography. I sincerely hope I can persuade you otherwise.
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Strudwick, R. (2018). Discussion and Collaboration in Diagnostic Radiography. In: Vine, T., Clark, J., Richards, S., Weir, D. (eds) Ethnographic Research and Analysis. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-58555-4_6
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