Radiologist

Patient interaction

Some radiologists, like teleradiologists, have no interaction with patients. Other radiologists, like interventional radiologists, primarily interact with patients and spend less time analyzing images. Diagnostic radiologists tend to spend the majority of their time analyzing images and a minority of their time interacting with patients. Compared to the healthcare provider who sends the patient to have images interpreted by a diagnostic radiologist, the radiologist usually does not know as much about the patient's clinical status or have as much influence on what action should be taken based on the images. Thus, the diagnostic radiologist reports image findings directly to that healthcare provider and often provides recommendations, who then takes the appropriate next steps for recommendations about medical management. Because radiologists undergo training regarding risks associated with different types of imaging tests and image-guided procedures, radiologists are the healthcare providers who generally educate patients about those risks to enable informed consent, not the healthcare provider requesting the test or procedure.