Mentoring in CT head reporting

Qualifying as a radiographer in CT head reporting was a surreal milestone. When it became reality, it brought a host of challenges: foremost among them, the expectation to meet the diagnostic accuracy of a consultant radiologist and achieve 95% sensitivity and specificity in my reports as per my trust policy^{1, 2}. While undertaking the postgraduate course, with limited departmental support for study time or in facilitating structured supervision from a neuroradiologist, I often wondered how I, a newly qualified reporting radiographer with no prior experience, could realistically meet such essential benchmarks.

I believed the solution lay in working harder, studying more and, crucially, finding a mentor. The first two were entirely within my control – but mentorship proved more complicated. At the time, there were no active CT head reporting radiographers in my trust, radiologists had little capacity for one-to-one guidance and...