In Reply I received dozens of emails from across the country in response to my A Piece of My Mind article on the loss of personal interactions between clinicians and radiologists. The majority of these emails echoed my sentiments. Dr Branstetter has offered a solution to this problem, which I had previously considered.
A few years ago, the hospital where I practice primarily reconfigured the neuroscience units, placing all neurology and neurosurgery beds on a single floor. As both a diagnostic and neurointerventional radiologist, I was frequently seeing patients on this neuroscience floor and routinely encountering my neurology and neurosurgery colleagues. I saw an opportunity and proposed to the neuroradiology section that the reading rooms be moved to the clinical floor. The idea was not well received. My younger partners were concerned about the loss of productivity due to increased interruptions from clinicians. A better part of an entire generation of radiologists has been trained in the empty reading room model. Some like it that way.